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1 



FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES 



The following Volumes are now ready— 

THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson 

ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton 

HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask 

JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes 

ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun 

THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie 

RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless 

SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson 

THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie 

JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask 

TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton 

FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond 

THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas 

NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood 

SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury 

KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. Barbe 

ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart 

JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne 

MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan 

DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood 

WILLIAM DUNBAR. By Oliphant Smeaton 

SIR WILLIAM WALLACE. By Professor Murison. 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. By Margaret Moyes Black 

THOMAS REID. By Professor Campbell Fraser 

POLLOK and AYTOUN. By Rosaline Masson 

ADAM SMITH. By Hector C Macpherson 

ANDREW MELVILLE. By William Morrison 

JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER. By E. S. Haldane 



JAMES FREDER 
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INTRODUCTION 



Early Life 



CONTENTS 

J UN 1.01902 

n, D. C. 

CHAPTER T 



PAGE 

7 



II 



CHAPTER II 

Wanderjahre— Social Life in Scotland— Beginning 

of his Literary Work 27 



CHAPTER III 
Philosophy before Ferrier's Day 



41 



CHAPTER IV 

* Fierce Warres and Faithful Loves' 



56 



CHAPTER V 

Development of ' Scottish Philosophy, the Old and 
the New' — Ferrier as a Correspondent 



72 



CHAPTER VI 

Ferrier's System of Philosophy— His Philosophical 
Works 



88 



CHAPTER VII 

The Coleridge Plagiarism— Miscellaneous Literary 

Work .106 



6 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

PAGE 

Professorial Life 122 

CHAPTER IX 
Life at St. Andrews 138 

CHAPTER X 
Last Days . . .152 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 

INTRODUCTION 

Mr. Oliphant Smeaton has asked me to write a few 
words of preface to this little book. If I try, it is only 
because I am old enough to have had the privilege of 
knowing some of those who were most closely associated 
with Ferrier. 

When I sat at the feet of Professor Campbell Fraser in 
the Metaphysics classroom at Edinburgh in 1875, Furrier's 
writings were being much read by us students. The 
influence of Sir William Hamilton was fast crumbling in 
the minds of young men who felt rather than saw that 
much lay beyond it. We were still engrossed with the 
controversy, waged in books which now, alas ! sell for a 
tenth of their former price, about the Conditioned and the 
Unconditioned. We still worked at Reid, Hamilton, and 
Mansel. But the attacks of Mill on the one side, and 
of Ferrier and Dr. Stirling on the other, were slowly but 
surely withdrawing our interest. Ferrier had pointed 
out a path which seemed to lead us in the direction of 
Germany if we would escape from Mill, and Stirling was 
urging us in the same sense. It was not merely that 
Ferrier had written books. He had died more than ten 
years earlier, but his personality was still a living 
influence. Echoes of his words came to us through 



8 INTRODUCTION 

Grant and Sellar. Outside the University, men like 
Blackwood and Makgill made us feel what a power he 
had been. But that was not all for at least some of us. 
Mrs. Ferrier had removed to Edinburgh — and I endorse 
all that my sister says of her rare quality. She lived in 
a house in Torphichen Street, which was the resort of 
those attracted, not only by the memory of her husband, 
but by her own great gifts. She was an old lady and an 
invalid. But though she could not move from her chair, 
paralysis had not dimmed her mental powers. She was 
a true daughter of ' Christopher North.' I doubt whether 
I have seen her rival in quickness, her superior I never saw. 
She could talk admirably to those sitting near her, and 
yet follow and join in the conversation of another group 
at the end of the room. She could adapt herself to 
everyone — to the shy and awkward student of eighteen, 
who like myself was too much in awe of her to do more 
unhelped than answer, and to the distinguished men of 
letters who came from every quarter attracted by her 
reputation for brilliance. The words of no one could be 
more incisive, the words of no one were habitually more 
kind than hers. She had known everybody. She forgot 
nobody. In those days the relation between Literature 
and the Parliament House, if less close than it had been, 
was more apparent than it is to-day, and distinguished 
Scottish judges and advocates mingled in the afternoon in 
the drawing-room, where she sat in a great arm-chair, with 
such men as Sellar and Stevenson and Grant and Shairp 
and Tulloch. But her personality was the supreme bond. 
Those days are over, and with them has passed away 
much of what stimulated one to read in the Institutes 
or the Philosophical Remains, But for the historian of 
British philosophy Ferrier continues as a prominent 



INTRODUCTION 9 

,, figure. He it was who first did, what Stirling and Green 
} did again at a stage later on— make a serious appeal to 
I thoughtful people to follow no longer the shallow 
ii rivulets down which the teaching of the great German 
| thinkers had trickled to them, but to seek the sources. 
If as a guide to those sources we do not look on him 
to-day as adequate, we are not the less under a deep 
obligation to him for having been the pioneer of later 
guides. What Ferrier wrote about forty years ago has 
|| now become readily accessible, and what has been got 
i| by going there is in process of rapid and complete 
! assimilation. The opinions which were in 1856 regarded 
; ! by the authorities of the Free and United Presbyterian 
J Churches as disqualifying Ferrier for the opportunity of 
influencing the mind of the youth of Edinburgh, from 
the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics in succession to 
Sir William Hamilton, are regarded by the present genera- 
tion of Presbyterians as the main reliable bulwark against 
the attacks of unbelievers. If one may judge by the essays 
in the recent volume called Lux Mundi, the same pheno- 
menon displays itself among the young High Church party 
in England. The Time-Spirit is fond of revenges. 

But even for others than the historians of the move- 
ment of Thought the books of Ferrier remain attractive. 
There is about them a certain atmosphere in which 
everything seems alive and fresh. Their author was no 
Dryasdust. He was a living human being, troubled^ as 
we are troubled, and interested in the things which 
interest us. He spoke to us, not from the skies, but 
from among a crowd of his fellow human beings, and we 
feel that he was one of ourselves. As such it is good 
that a memorial of him should be placed where it may 
easily be seen. R. B. Haldane. 



CHAPTER I 

EARLY LIFE 

It may be a truism, but it is none the less a fact, that it 
is not always he of whom the world hears most who influ- 
ences most deeply the thought of the age in which he 
lives. The name of James Frederick Ferrier is little heard 
of beyond the comparatively small circle of philosophic 
thinkers who reverence his memory and do their best 
■! to keep it green : to others it is a name of little import — 
one among a multitude at a time when Scotland had 
many sons rising up to call her blessed, and not perhaps 
one of the most notable of these. And yet, could we but 
estimate the value of work accomplished in the higher 
sphere of thought as we estimate it in the other regions 
of practical work— an impossibility, of course— we might 
be disposed to modify our views, and accord our praises 
in very different quarters from those in which they are 
usually bestowed. 

James Ferrier wrote no popular books ; he came before 
the public comparatively little; he made no effort to 
reconcile religion with philosophy on the one hand, or to 
propound theories startling in their unorthodoxy on the 
other. And still we may claim for him a place— and an 
honourable place— amongst the other Famous Scots, for 
the simple reason that after a long century of wearisome 

ii 



12 FAMOUS SCOTS , 

reiteration of tiresome platitudes — platitudes which had 
lost their original meaning even to the utterers of them, 
and which had become misleading to those who heard 
and thought they understood — Ferrier had the courage to 
strike out new lines for himself, to look abroad for new 
inspiration, and to hand on these inspirations to those 
who could work them into a truly national philosophy. 

In Scotland, where, in spite of politics, traditions are 
honoured to a degree unknown to most other countries, 
family and family associations count for much ; and in 
these James Ferrier was rich. His father was a Writer 
to the Signet, John Ferrier by name, whose sister was 
the famous Scottish novelist, Susan Ferrier, authoress of 
The Inheritance, Destiny, and Marriage. Susan Ferrier 
did for high life in Scotland what Gait achieved for the 
humbler ranks of society, and attained to considerable 
eminence in the line of fiction which she adopted. Her 
works are still largely read, have recently been repub- 
lished, and in their day were greatly admired by no less 
an authority than Sir Walter Scott, himself a personal 
friend of the authoress. 1 Ferrier's grandfather, James 
Ferrier, also a Writer to the Signet, was a man of great 
energy of character. He acted in a business capacity 
for many years both to the Duke of Argyle of the time 
and to various branches of the Clan Campbell : it was, 
indeed, through the influence of the Duke that he obtained 
the appointment which he held of Principal Clerk of 
Session. James Ferrier, like his daughter, was on terms 
of intimate friendship with Sir Walter Scott, with whom 
he likewise was a colleague in office. Scott alludes to 

1 In a Life of Susan Ferrier ■, lately published, an account of the 
family is given which was written by Miss Ferrier, for her nephew, 
the subject of our memoir. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 13 

him in his Journal as 'Uncle Adam,' the name of a 
character in Miss Ferrier's Inheritance^ drawn, as she 
herself acknowledges, from her father. He died in 1829, 
at which time Scott writes of him : * Honest old Mr. 
Ferrier is dead, at extreme old age. I confess I should 
not like to live so long. He was a man with strong 
passions and strong prejudices, but with generous and 
manly sentiments at the same time.' James Ferrier's 
wife, Miss Coutts, was remarkable for her beauty : a 
large family was born to her, the eldest son of whom was 
James Frederick Ferrier's father. Young Ferrier, the 
subject of this sketch, used frequently to dine with his 
grandfather at his house in Morningside, where Susan 
Ferrier acted in the capacity of hostess ; and it is easy to 
imagine the bright talk which would take place on these 
occasions, and the impression which must have been 
made upon the lad, both then and after he attained to 
manhood; for Miss Ferrier survived until 1854. In 
later life, indeed, her wit was said to be somewhat 
caustic, and she was possibly dreaded by her younger 
friends and relatives as much as she was respected; but 
this, to do her justice, was partly owing to infirmities. 
She was at anyrate keenly interested in the fortunes of 
her nephew, to whom she was in the habit of alluding as 
' the last of the metaphysicians ' — scarcely, perhaps, a very 
happy title for one who was somewhat of an iconoclast, 
and began a new era rather than concluded an old. 

James Frederick Ferrier's mother, Margaret Wilson, 
was a sister of Professor John Wilson — the ' Christopher 
North' of immortal memory, whose daughter he was 
afterwards to marry. Margaret Ferrier was a woman of 
striking personal beauty. Her features were perfect in 
their symmetry, as is shown in a lovely miniature, 



14 FAMOUS SCOTS 

painted by Saunders, a well-known miniature painter of 
the day, now in the possession of Professor Ferrier's son, 
her grandson. Many of these personal charms descended 
to James Ferrier, whose well-cut features bore consider- 
able resemblance to his mother's. And his close con- 
nection with the Wilson family had the result of bringing 
the young man into association with whatever was best 
in literature and aft. While yet a boy, we are told, he 
sat upon Sir Walter's knee; the Ettrick Shepherd had 
told him tales and recited Border ballads ; while Lockhart 
took the trouble to draw pictures, as he only could, to 
amuse the child. 

In surroundings such as these James Frederick Ferrier 
was born on the 16th day of June 1808, his birthplace 
being Heriot Row, in the new town of Edinburgh — a 
street which has been made historic to us by the recol- 
lections of another child who lived there long years 
afterwards, and who left the grey city of his birth to die 
far off in an island in the Pacific. But of Ferrier's 
child-life we know nothing : whether he played at '■ tig ' 
or ' shinty' with the children in the adjoining gardens, 
or climbed Arthur's Seat, or tried to scale the c Cats' 
Nick ' in the Salisbury Crags close by ; or whether he 
was a grave boy, 'holding at' his lessons, or reading 
other books that interested him, in preference to his 
play. Ferrier did not dwell on these things or talk 
much of his youth ; or if he did so, his words have been 
forgotten. What we do know are the barest facts : that 
his second name was given him in consideration of his 
father's friendship with Lord Frederick Campbell, Lord 
Clerk Register of Scotland; that his first name, as is 
usual in Scotland for an elder son, was his paternal 
grandfather's; and that he was sent to live with the 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 15 

Rev. Dr. Duncan, the parish minister of Ruthwell, in 
Dumfriesshire, to receive his early education. Dr. 
Duncan of Ruthwell was a man of considerable ability 
and energy of character, though not famous in any 
special sphere of learning. He is well known, however, 
in the south of Scotland as the originator of Savings 
Banks there, and his works on the Seasons bear 
evidence of an interest in the natural^ world. At anyrate 
the time passed in Dumfriesshire would appear to have 
left pleasant recollections \ for when Ferrier in later life 
alluded to it, it was with every indication of gratitude for 
the instruction which he received. He kept up his 
friendship with the sons of his instructor as years went 
on, and always expressed himself as deeply attached to 
the place where a happy childhood had been passed. 
Nor was learning apparently neglected, for Ferrier began 
his Latin studies at Ruthwell, and there first learned — 
an unusual lesson for so young a boy — to delight in the 
reading of the Latin poets, and of Virgil and Ovid in 
particular. After leaving Ruthwell, he attended the 
High School of Edinburgh, the great Grammar School 
of the metropolis, which was, however, soon to have a 
rival in another day school set up in the western part of 
the rapidly growing town; and then he was sent to 
school at Greenwich, where he was placed under the 
care of Dr. Burney, a nephew of the famous Fanny 
Burney, afterwards Madame d'Arblay. From school, 
as the manner of the time was, the boy passed to the 
University of Edinburgh at the age of seventeen, — older 
really than was customary in his day, — and here he 
remained for the two sessions 1825-26 and 1826-27, 
or until he was old enough to matriculate at Oxford. 
At Edinburgh, Ferrier distinguished himself in the class 



16 FAMOUS SCOTS 

of Moral Philosophy, and carried off the prize of the year 
for a poem which was looked upon as giving promise of 
literary power afterwards fulfilled. His knowledge of 
Latin and Greek were considered good (the standard 
might not have been very high), but in mathematics he 
was nowhere. At Oxford he was entered in 1828 as a 
1 gentleman-commoner ' at Magdalen College, the College 
of his future father-in-law, John Wilson. A gentleman- 
commoner of Magdalen in the earlier half of the century 
is not suggestive of severe mental exercise, 1 and from the 
very little one can gather from tradition — for contempor- 
aries and friends have naturally passed away — James 
Ferrier was no exception to the common rule. That he 
rode is very clear ; the College was an expensive one, and 
he was probably inclined to be extravagant. Tradition 
speaks of his pelting the deer in Magdalen Park with 
eggs ; but as to further distinction in more intellectual 
lines, record does not tell. In this respect he presents a 
contrast to his predecessor at Oxford, and friend of later 
days, Sir William Hamilton, whose monumental learning 
created him a reputation while still an undergraduate. 
Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Selborne, was a 
contemporary of Ferrier's at Oxford; Sheriff Campbell 
Smith was at the bar of the House of Lords acting as 
Palmer's junior the day after Ferrier's death, and Sir 

1 The gentlemen-commoners at Magdalen, as elsewhere, paid 
higher fees and wore a distinctive costume ; at Magdalen they had 
a common room of their own, distinct from that of the Fellows, or 
the Demies or Scholars, and seldom read for honours. In Ferrier's 
days Magdalen College admitted no ordinary commoners, and there 
were but few resident undergraduates, many of the thirty demies 
being graduates and non-resident. In the year of his matriculation 
there were only ten gentlemen-commoners ; thus, as far as under- 
graduates went, the College was a small one. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 17 

Roundell told him that he remembered Ferrier well at 
College ; he described him as { careless about University 
work,' but as writing clever verses, several of which he re- 
peated with considerable gusto. Of other friends the names 
alone are preserved, William Edward Collins, afterwards 
Collins-Wood of Keithick, Perthshire, who died in 1877, 
and J. P. Shirley of Ettington Park, in Warwickshire ; l 
but what influences were brought to bear upon him by his 
University life, or whether his interest in philosophical 
pursuits were in any way aroused during his time at 
College, we have no means of telling. A later friend, 
Henry Inglis, wrote of these early days : ' My friendship 
with Ferrier began about the time he was leaving Oxford, 
or immediately after he had left it — I should say about 
1830 or thereabout. At that University I don't think 
he did anything more remarkable than contracting a 
large tailor's bill; which annoyed him for many years 
afterwards. At that time he was a wonderfully hand- 
some, intellectual-looking young man, — a tremendous 
" swell " from top to toe, and with his hair hanging down 
over his shoulders.' Though later on in life this last 
characteristic was not so marked, Ferrier's photographs 
show his hair still fairly long and brushed off a finely- 
modelled square forehead, such as is [usually associated 
with strongly developed intellectual faculties. 

It is known that Ferrier took his Bachelor's degree 
in 1832, and that he had by that time managed to 
acquire a very tolerable knowledge of the classics and 
begun to study philosophy, so that his time could not 
have been entirely idle. For the rest, he probably 

1 Mr. Shirley was Member of Parliament for South Warwickshire, 
a well-known genealogist, and the author of The Noble and Gentle 
Men of England. 
2 



18 FAMOUS SCOTS 

passed happily through his years at College, as many 
others have done before and after hirn, without allowing 
more weighty cares to dwell upon his mind. Another 
friend of after days, the late Principal Tulloch, after 
noting the fact that Oxford had not then developed the 
philosophic spirit which in recent years has marked her 
schools, and which had not then taken root any more 
than the High Church movement which preceded it, 
goes on : ' It may be doubted, indeed, whether Oxford 
exercised any definite intellectual influence on Pro- 
fessor Ferrier. He had imbibed his love for the Latin 
poets before he went there, and his devotion to Greek 
philosophy was an after-growth with which he never 
associated his Magdalen studies. To one who visited 
the College with him many years afterwards, and to 
whom he pointed out with admiration its noble walks 
and trees, his associations with the place seemed to be 
mainly those of amusement. There is reason to think 
that few of those who knew him at Magdalen would have 
afterwards recognised him in the laborious student at St. 
Andrews, who for weeks together would scarcely cross 
the threshold of his study ; and yet to all who knew him 
well, there was nevertheless a clear connection between 
the gay gownsman and the hard-working Professor.' 

In 1832, Ferrier became an advocate at Edinburgh, \ 
but it does not appear that he had any serious idea of 
practising at the Bar. This is the period at which we 
know that the passion for metaphysical speculation laid 
hold of him, — a passion which is unintelligible and in- , 
explicable to those who do not share in it, — and as 
Ferrier could not clearly say in what direction this was 
leading him, as far as practical life was concerned, he < 
probably deemed it best to attach himself to a pro-- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 19 

i fession which left much scope to the adopter of it, to 

strike out lines of his own. What led Ferrier to de- 

; termine to spend some months of the year 1834 at 

Heidelberg it would be extremely interesting to know. 

! The friend first quoted writes : ' I cannot tell of the 

\ influences under which he devoted himself to meta- 

\ physics. My opinion is that there were none, but that 

j he was a philosopher born. He attached himself at 

J once to the fellowship of Sir William Hamilton, to 

|j whom he was introduced by a common friend — I think 

f the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. I know that he looked 

on Sir William at that time as his master.' 

Probably the friendship with Hamilton simply arose 
I from the natural attraction which two sympathetic spirits 
feel to one another. It is clear that at this time 
Ferrier's bent was towards metaphysics, and that, as 
Mr. Inglis says, this bent was born with him and was 
only beginning to find its natural outlet; therefore it 
would be very natural to suppose that acquaintance 
would be sought with one who was at this time in the 
zenith of his powers, and whose writings in the Edin- 
burgh Review were exciting liveliest interest. A casual 
acquaintanceship between the young man of three-and- 
twenty and the matured philosopher twenty years his 
senior soon ripened into a friendship, not perhaps 
common between two men so different in age. It is 
perhaps more remarkable considering the differences 
in opinion on philosophical questions which soon arose 
between the two; for it is just as difficult for those 
whose point of view is fundamentally opposed on specu- 
lative questions to carry on an intercourse concerning 
their pursuits which shall be both friendly and uncon- 
strained, as for two political opponents to discuss 



20 FAMOUS SCOTS 

vital questions of policy without any undercurrent of 
self-restraint, when they start from entirely opposite 
principles. Most likely had the two been actually 
contemporaries it might not have been so easy, but as 
it was, the younger man started with, and preserved, 
the warmest feelings to his senior; and even in his 
criticisms he expresses himself in the strongest terms 
of gratitude: 'He (Hamilton) has taught those who 
study him to think^ and he must take the conse- 
quences, whether they think in unison with himself or 
not. We conceive, however, that even those who 
differ from him most, would readily own that to his 
instructive disquisitions they were indebted for at least 
half of all they know of philosophy.' And in the 
appendix to the Institutes, written soon after Sir 
William's death, Ferrier says : ' Morally and intellect- 
ually, Sir William Hamilton was among the greatest 
of the great. A simpler and a grander nature never 
arose out of darkness into human life; a truer and a 
manlier character God never made. For years together 
scarcely a day passed in which I was not in his com- 
pany for hours, and never on this earth may I expect 
to live such happy hours again. I have learned more 
from him than from all other philosophers put together ; 
more, both as regards what I assented to and what I 
dissented from.' It was this open and free discussion j 
of all questions that came before them — discussion in 
which there must have been much difference of opinion 
freely expressed on both sides, that made these evenings 
spent in Manor Place, where the Hamiltons, then a 
recently married couple, had lately settled, so delight- 
ful to young Ferrier. He had individuality and ■ 
originality enough not to be carried away by the argu- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 21 

; ments used by so great an authority and so learned a 

} man as his friend was reckoned, and then as later he 

J constantly expressed his regret that powers so great 

; had been devoted to the service of a philosophic system 

} — that of Reid — of which Ferrier so thoroughly dis- 

i approved. But at the same time he hardly dared to 

;| expect that the labours of a lifetime could be set aside 

! at the bidding of a man so much his junior, and to 

,1 say the truth it is doubtful whether Hamilton ever 

ij fully grasped his opponent's point of view. Still, Ferrier 

tells us that from first to last his whole intercourse with 

: Sir William Hamilton was marked with more pleasure 

j and less pain than ever attended his intercourse with 

any human being, and after Hamilton was gone he 

cherished that memory with affectionate esteem. A 

touching account is given in Sir William's life of how 

during that terrible illness which so sadly impaired his 

powers and nearly took his life, Ferrier might be seen 

pacing to and fro on the street opposite his bedroom 

window during the whole anxious night, watching for 

indications of his condition, yet unwilling to intrude on 

the attendants, and unable to tear himself from the 

spot where his friend was possibly passing through the 

last agony. Such friendship is honourable to both 

men concerned. 

Perhaps, then, it was this intercourse with kindred 
spirits (for many such were in the habit of gathering 
at the Professor's house) that caused Ferrier finally 
to determine to make philosophy the pursuit of his life 
— this combined, it may be, with the interest in letters 
which he could not fail to derive from his own im- 
mediate circle. He was in constant communication 
with Susan Ferrier, his aunt, who encouraged his literary 



22 FAMOUS SCOTS 

bent to the utmost of her power. Then Professor 
Wilson, his uncle, though of a very different character 
from his own, attracted him by his brightness and wit 
— a brightness which he says he can hardly bring before 
himself, far less communicate to others who had not 
known him. Perhaps, as the same friend quoted before 
suggests, the attraction was partly due to another source. 
He says : ' How Ferrier got on with Wilson I never 
could divine; unless it w T ere through the bright eyes 
of his daughter. Wilson and Ferrier seemed to me as 
opposite as the poles ; the one all poetry, the other all 
prose. But the youth probably yielded to the mature 
majesty and genius of the man. Had they met on 
equal terms I don't think they could have agreed for 
ten minutes. As it was, they had serious differences 
at times, which, however, I believe were all ultimately 
and happily adjusted.' 

The visits to his uncle's home, and the attractive 
young lady whom he there met, must have largely con- 
tributed to Ferrier's happiness in these years of mental 
fermentation. Such times come in many men's lives 
when youth is turning into manhood, and powers are 
wakening up within that seem as though they would 
lead us we know not whither. And so it may have been 
with Ferrier. But he was endowed with considerable 
calmness and self-command, combined with a confidence 
in his powers sufficient to carry him through many diffi- 
culties that might otherwise have got the better of him. 
Wilson's home, Elleray, near the Lake of Windermere, 
was the centre of a circle of brilliant stars. Ferrier 
recollected, while still a lad of seventeen years of age, 
meeting there at one time, in the summer of 1825, Scott, 
Wordsworth, Lockhart, and Canning, a conjunction 






JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 23 

difficult to beat. 1 Once more, we are told, and on a sadder 
occasion, he came into association with the greatest Scot- 
tish novelist. ' It was on that gloomy voyage when the 
suffering man was conveyed to Leith from London, on 
his return from his ill-fated foreign journey. Mr. Ferrier 
was also a passenger, and scarcely dared to look on the 
almost unconscious form of one whose genius he so 
warmly admired.' The end was then very near. 

Professor Ferrier's daughter tells us that long after, in 
the summer of 1856, the family went to visit the English 
Lakes, the centre of attraction being Elleray, Mr. Ferrier's 
old home and birthplace. 'The very name of Elleray 
breathes of poetry and romance. Our father and mother 
had, of course, known it in its glorious prime, when our 
grandfather, "Christopher North," wrestled with dalesmen, 
strolled in his slippers with Wordsworth to Keswick (a 
distance of seventeen miles), and kept his ten-oared barge 
in the long drawing-room of Elleray. In these days they 
had " rich company," and the names of Southey, Words- 
worth, De Quincey, and Coleridge were to them familiar 
household words. The cottage my mother was born in 
still stands, overshadowed by a giant sycamore." 

We can easily imagine the effect which society such as 
this would have on a young man's mind. But more than 
that, the friendship with the attractive cousin, Margaret 
Wilson, developed into something warmer, and an engage- 
ment was finally formed, which culminated in his marriage 
in 1837. Not many of James Ferrier's letters to his cousin 
during the long engagement have been preserved ; the few 
that are were written from Germany in 1834, the year 

1 This meeting occurred after the Irish tour of Scott, Miss Anne 
Scott, and Lockhart, when they visited Wilson at Elleray. Canning 
was staying at Storre, in the neighbourhood. 



24 FAMOUS SCOTS 

in which he went to Heidelberg ; they were addressed to 
Thirlstane House, near Selkirk, where Miss Wilson was 
residing, and they give a lively account of his adventures. 
The voyage from Leith to Rotterdam, judging from 
the first letter written from Heidelberg, and dated 
August 1834, would appear to have begun in inaus- 
picious fashion. Ferrier writes : f I have just been here 
a week, and would have answered your letter sooner, 
had it not been that I wished to make myself tolerably 
well acquainted with the surrounding scenery before 
writing to you, and really the heat has been so over- 
whelming that I have been impelled to take matters 
leisurely, and have not even yet been able to get 
through so much view-hunting as I should have wished. 
What I have seen I will endeavour to describe to you. 
This place itself is most delightful, and the country 
about it is magnificent. But this, as a reviewer would 
say, by way of anticipation. Have patience, and in the 
meantime let me take events in their natural order, and 
begin by telling you I sailed from Leith on the morning 
of the second of this month, with no wind at all. We 
drifted on, I know not how, and toward evening were 
within gunshot of Inchkeith ; on the following morning 
we were in sight of the Bass, and in sight of the same 
we continued during the whole day. For the next two 
or three days we went beating up against a head-wind, 
which forced us to tack so much that whenever we 
made one mile we travelled ten, a pleasant mode of 
progressing, is it not ? However, I had the whole ship 
to myself, and plenty of female society in the person of 
the captain's lady, who, being fond of pleasure, had 
chosen to diversify her monotonous existence at Leith 
by taking a delightful summer trip to Rotterdam, which 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 25 

confined her to her crib during almost the whole of our 
passage under the pressure of racking headaches and roar- 
ing sickness. She had a weary time of it, poor woman, 
and nothing could do her any good — neither spelding, 
cheese, nor finnan haddies, nor bacon, nor broth, nor 
salt beef, nor ale, nor gin, nor brandy and water, nor 
Epsom salts, though of one or other of these she was 
aye takin^ a wee bit, or a little drop. We were nearly a 
week in clearing our own Firth, and did no good till we 
got as far as Scarborough. At this place I had serious 
intentions of getting ashore if possible, and making out 
the rest of my journey by means that were more to be 
depended on. Just in the nick of time, however, a fair 
wind sprang up, and from Scarborough we had a capital 
run, with little or no interruption, to the end of our 
voyage.' An account of a ten days' voyage which 
makes us thankful to be in great measure independent 
of the winds at sea! Holland, our traveller thinks an 
intolerable country to live in, and the first impressions 
of the Rhine are distinctly unfavourable. i The river 
himself is a fine fellow, certainly, but the country 
through which he flows is stale, flat, though I believe, 
not unprofitable. The banks on either side are covered 
either with reeds or with a matting of rank shrubbery 
formed apparently out of dirty green worsted, and the 
continuance of it so palls upon the senses that the mind 
at last becomes unconscious of everything except the 
constant flap-flapping of the weary paddles as they go 
beating on, awakening the dull echoes of the sedgy 
shores. The eye is occasionally relieved by patches of 
naked sand, and now and then a stone about the size 
of your fist, diversifies the monotony of the scene. 
Occasionally, in the distance, are to be seen funny, 



26 FAMOUS SCOTS 

forlorn-looking objects, trying evidently to look like trees, 
but whether they would really turn out to be trees on 
a nearer inspection is what I very much doubt.' At 
Cologne he had an amusing meeting with an English- 
man, ' whom I at once twigged to be an Oxford man, 
and more, even, an Oxford tutor. There is a stiff twitch 
in the right shoulder of the tribe, answering to a similar 
one in the hip-bone on the same side, which there is no 
mistaking.' The tutor appears to have done valiant ser- 
vice in making known the traveller's wants in French to 
waiters, etc., though ' he spent rather too much of his time 
in scheming how to abridge the sixpence which, " time out 
of mind," has been the perquisite of Boots, doorkeepers, 
etc' * But,' he adds in excuse, ' his name was Bull, and 
therefore, as the authentic epitome of his countrymen, 
he would not fail to possess this along with the other 
peculiarities of Englishmen.' From Cologne, Ferrier went 
to Bonn, where he had an introduction to Dr. Welsh, and 
then proceeded up the Rhine to Mayence. He does not 
form a very high estimate of the beauty of the scenery. 
He feels ' a want of something ; in fact, to my mind, 
there is a want of everything which makes earth, wood, 
and water something more than mere water, wood, and 
earth. We have here a constant and endless variety of 
imposing objects (imposing is just the word for them), 
but there is no variety in them, nothing but one round- 
backed hill after another, generally carrying their woods, 
when they have any, very stiffly, and when they have none 
presenting to the eye a surface of tawdry and squalid 
patchwork,' thus suggesting, in his view, a series of 
children's gardens — an impression often left on travellers 
when visiting this same country. His next letters find 
him settled in the University town of Heidelberg. 



CHAPTER II 

WANDERJAHRE — SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND — 
BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY LIFE 

In the present century in Germany we have seen a 
period of almost unparalleled literary glory succeeded by 
a time of great commercial prosperity and national 
enthusiasm. But when Ferrier visited that country in 
1834 the era of its intellectual greatness had hardly 
passed away ; some, at least, of its stars remained, and 
others had very recently ceased to be. Goethe had died 
just two years before, but Heine lived till many years 
afterwards ; amongst the philosophers, though Kant 
and Fichte, of course, were long since gone, Schelling 
was still at work at Munich, and Hegel lived at Berlin 
till November of 1831, when he was cut off during an 
epidemic of cholera. Most of the great men had dis- 
appeared, and yet the memory of their achievements still 
survived, and the impetus they gave to thought could 
not have been lost. The traditional lines of speculation 
consistently carried out since Reformation days had 
survived war and national calamity, and it remained to 
be seen whether the greater tests of prosperity and 
success would be as triumphantly undergone. 

We can imagine Ferrier's feelings when this new world 
opened up before him, a Scottish youth, to whom it was 
a new, untrodden country. It may be true that it was his 
literary rather than his speculative affinities that first 

27 



28 FAMOUS SCOTS 

attracted him to Germany. To form in literature he 
always attached the greatest value, and to the end his 
interest in letters was only second to his attachment to 
philosophy. German poetry was to him what it was to so 
many of the youth of the country from which it came — 
the expression of their deepest, and likewise of their 
freshest aspiration. The poetry of other countries and 
other tongues — English and Latin, for example — meant 
much to him, but that of Germany was nearest to his 
heart. French learning did not attract him ; neither its 
literature nor its metaphysics and psychological method 
appealed to his thoughtful, analytic mind; but in Germany 
he found a nation which had not as yet resigned its 
interest in things of transcendental import in favour of 
what pertained to mere material welfare. 

Such was the Germany into which Ferrier came in 
1834. He did not, so far as we can hear, enter deeply 
into its social life ; he visited it as a traveller, rather than 
as a student, and his stay in it was brief. Considering the 
shortness of his time there, and the circumstances of his 
visit, the impression that it made upon him is all the 
more remarkable, for it was an impression that lasted 
and was evident throughout all his after life. Since his 
day, indeed, it would be difficult to say how many 
young Scotsmen have been impressed in a similar way 
by a few months' residence at a University town in 
Germany. For partly owing to Ferrier's own efforts, and 
perhaps even more owing to the 'boom* — to use a 
vulgarism — brought about by Carlyle's writings, and by 
his first making known the marvels of German literature 
to the ordinary English-speaking public, who had never 
learned the language or tried to understand its recent 
history, the old traditional literary alliance between 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 29 

Scotland and France appeared for the time being to 
have broken down in favour of a similar association with 
its rival country, Germany. The work of Goethe was at 
last appreciated, nothing was now too favourable to say 
about its merits ; philosophy was suddenly discovered to 
have its home in Germany, and there alone; our in- 
sularity in keeping to our antiquated methods — dryasdust, 
we were told, as the old ones of the schools, and perhaps 
as edifying — was vigorously denounced. Theology, which 
had hitherto found complete support from the philosophic 
system which acted as her handmaid, and w T as only 
tolerated as such, was naturally affected in like manner 
by the change ; and to her credit be it said, that instead 
of with averted eyes looking elsewhere, as might easily 
have been done, she determined to face the worst, and 
wisely asked the question whether in her department too 
she had not something she could learn from a sister 
country across the sea. Hence a great change was 
brought about in the mental attitude of Scotland ; but 
we anticipate. 

Ferrier, after leaving Heidelberg, paid a short visit to 
Leipzig, and then for a few weeks took up his abode at 
Berlin. From Leipzig he writes to Miss Wilson again : 
"How do you like an epistola dated from this great 
emporium of taste and letters, this culminating point of 
Germanism, where waggons jostle philosophy, and tobacco- 
impregnated air is articulated into divinest music ? It is 
fair-time, and I did not arrive, as one usually does, a 
day behind it, but on the very day it commenced. It 
will last, I believe, some weeks, and during that time all 
business is done on the open streets, which are lined on 
each side with large wooden booths, and are swarming 
with men and merchandise of every description and from 



30 FAMOUS SCOTS 

every quarter of the world. It very much resembles a 
Ladies' Sale in the Assembly Rooms (what I never saw), 
only the ladies here are frequently Jews with fierce 
beards, and have always a pipe in their mouths when not 
eating or drinking. As you walk along you will find the 
order of the day to be somewhat as follows. You first 
come to pipes, then shawls, then nails, then pipes, pipes 
again, pipes, gingerbread, dolls, then pipes, bridles, spurs, 
pipes, books, warming-pans, pipes, china, writing-desks, 
pipes again, pipes, pipes, pipes, nothing but pipes — the 
very pen will write nothing but pipes. Pipes, you see, 
decidedly carry it. I wonder they don't erect public 
tobacco - smoke works, lay pipes for it along the streets, 
and smoke away — a city at a time. Private families 
might take it in as we do gas ! ' 

Ferrier appears to have spent a week at Frankfort 
before reaching his destination at Leipzig. He describes 
his journey there : ' At Frankfort I saw nothing worthy 
of note except a divine statue of Ariadne riding on a 
leopard. After lumbering along for two nights and two 
days in a clumsy diligence, I reached Leipzig two days 
ago. I thought that by the way I might perhaps see 
something worthy of mention, and accordingly sometimes 
put my head out of the window to look. But no — the 
trees, for instance, had all to a man planted their heads 
in the earth, and were growing with their legs upwards, 
just as they do with us ; and as for the natives, they, on 
the contrary, had each of them filled a flower-pot, called 
a skull, full of earth, put their heads in it, and were 
growing downwards, just as the same animal does in our 
country; and on coming to one's recollection in the 
morning in a German diligence you find yourself sur- 
rounded by the same drowsy, idiotical, glazed, stained, 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 31 

and gummy complement of faces which might have 
accompanied you into Carlisle on an autumn morning 
after a night of travel in His Majesty's mail coach.' 

Berlin impressed Ferrier by its imposing public build- 
ings and general aspect of prosperity. It had, of course, 
long before reached a position of importance under the 
great Frederick's government, though not the importance 
or the size that it afterwards attained. Still, it was the 
centre of attraction for all classes throughout Prussia, 
and possessed a cultivated society in which the middle- 
class element was to all appearances predominant. 
Ferrier writes of the town : ' Of the inside of the 
buildings and what is to be seen there I have nothing 
yet to say, but their external* aspect is most magnificent. 
Palaces, churches, mosque -like structures, spires and 
domes and towers all standing together, but with large 
spaces and fine open drives between, so that all are seen 
to the greatest possible advantage, conspire to form a 
most glorious city. At this moment a fountain which I 
can see from my window is playing in the middle of the 
square. A jet d'eau indeed ! ! It may do very well for a 
Frenchman to call it that, but we must call it a perfect 
volcano of water. A huge column goes hissing up as 
high as a steeple, with the speed and force of a rocket, 
and comes down in thunder, and little rainbows are 
flitting about in the showery spray. It being Sunday, 
every thing and person is gayer than usual. Bands 
are playing and soldiers are parading all through the 
town; everything, indeed, is military, and yet little is 
foppish — a statement which to English ears will sound 
like a direct contradiction.' 

Our traveller had been given letters to certain Berlin 
Professors from young Blackie, afterwards Professor of 



32 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Greek in Edinburgh University, who had just translated 
Goethe's Faust into the English tongue. < I went about 
half an hour ago to call upon a sort of Professor here to 
whom I had a letter and a Faust to present from Blackie 
— found him ill and confined to bed — was admitted, 
however, very well received, and shall call again when I 
think there is a chance of his being better. I have still 
another Professor to call on with a letter and book from 
Blackie, and there my acquaintance with the society of 
Berlin is likely to terminate. ' One other introduction 
to Ferrier on this expedition to Germany is mentioned 
in a note from his aunt, Miss Susan Ferrier, the only 
letter to her nephew that has apparently been preserved : 
whether or not he availed himself of the offer, history 
does not record. It runs as follows : — 

'•Edinr., 1st August. 

1 1 could not get a letter to Lord Corehouse's German 
sister (Countess Purgstall), as it seems she is in bad 
health, and not fit to entertain vagabonds ; but I enclose 
a very kind one from my friend, Mrs. Erskine, to the 
ambassadress at Munich, and if you don't go there you 
may send it by post, as it will be welcome at any time 
on its own account.' 

It was, as has been said, only about three years 
previously to this visit that Hegel had passed away at 
Berlin, and one wonders whether Ferrier first began to 
interest himself in his writings at this time, and whether 
he visited the graveyard near the city gate where Hegel 
lies, close to his great predecessor Fichte. One would 
almost think this last was so from the exact description 
given in his short biography of Hegel ; and it is significant 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 33 

that on his return he brought with him a medallion and a 
; photograph of the great philosopher. This would seem 
j to indicate that his thoughts were already tending in the 
j direction of Hegelian metaphysics, but how far this was so 
j we cannot tell. Certainly the knowledge of the German 
I language acquired by Ferrier during this visit to the 
\ country proved most valuable to him, and enabled him 
! to study its philosophy at a time when translations were 
i practically non-existent, and few had learned to read it. 
ii That knowledge must indeed have been tolerably com- 
plete, for in 1-851, when Sir Edward Bulwer (afterwards 
Lord Lytton) was about to republish his translation of 
Schiller's Ballads, he corresponded with Ferrier regarding 
j the accuracy fand exactness of his wort. He afterwards, 
in the prefacfe to M& fablume; &cI$howl<|dges the great ser- 
I vices Ferrier [had rendered; and in c|edicating the book 
1 to him, speali^2teiyfe ; 3^^LS?^Hl e he owes to one 
whose ' critical judgment and skill in detecting the finer 
shades of meaning in the original ' had been so useful. 
! Ferrier likewise has the credit, accorded him by De 
I Quincey, of having corrected several errors in all the 
I English translations of Faust then extant — errors which 
I were not merely literary inaccuracies, but which also 
j detracted from the vital sense of the original. As to 
j Lord Lytton, Ferrier must at this time have been 
| interested in his writings ; for in a letter to Miss Wilson, 
! he advises her to read Bulwer's Pilgrims of the Rhine if 
i she wishes for a description of the scenery, and speaks 
; of the high esteem with which he was regarded by the 
j Germans. 

It was in 1837 that Ferrier married the young lady 
j j with whom he had so long corresponded. The marriage 
> ! j was in all respects a happy one. Mrs. Ferrier' s gifts and 

3 

1 



34 FAMOUS SCOTS 

graces, inherited from her father, will not soon be for- 
gotten, either in St. Andrews where she lived so long, or 
in Edinburgh, the later home of her widowhood. One 
whose spirits were less gay might have found a husband 
whose interests were so completely in his work — and 
that a work in which she could not share — difficult to 
deal with ; but she possessed understanding to appreciate 
that work, as well as humour, and could accommodate 
herself to the circumstances in which she found herself ; 
while he, on his part, entered into the gaiety on occasion 
with the best. A friend and student of the St. Andrews' 
days writes of Ferrier : ' Fie married his cousin Margaret, 
Professor's Wilson's daughter, and I don't doubt that a 
shorthand report of their courtship would have been 
better worth reading than nine hundred and ninety-nine 
out of every thousand courtships, for she had wit as well 
as beauty, and he was capable of appreciating both. 
No more charming woman have I ever seen or heard 
making game of mankind in general, and in particular of 
pedants and hypocrites. She would even laugh at her 
husband on occasion, but it was dangerous for any 
volunteer to try to help her in that sport. A finer- 
looking couple I have never seen.' l 

1 Another sister married William Edmondstoune Aytoun, the 
poet. It was regarding Professor Aytoun's proposal for Miss 
Wilson's hand that the following story is told. When the 
engagement was being formed, Aytoun somewhat demurred to 
interviewing the father of the lady, and she herself undertook the 
mission. Presently she returned with a card pinned upon her 
breast bearing the satisfactory inscription, 'With the author's 
compliments ' ! Aytoun, as is well known, was extremely plain, 
and it was of his bust in the Blackwoods' saloon, a recognisable 
but idealistic likeness, that Ferrier remarked, 'I should call that 
the pursuit of beauty under difficulties. 5 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 35 

During her infancy Edinburgh had become Mrs. 
Ferrier's home, though she made frequent visits to West- 
morland, of whose dialect she had a complete command. 
The courtship, however, had been for the most part 
carried on at the picturesque old house of Gorton, where 
' Christopher North ' was temporarily residing, and which, 
situated as it is overlooking the lovely glen made 
immortal by the name of Hawthornden, in view of 
Roslin Chapel, and surrounded by old-fashioned walks 
and gardens, must have been an ideal spot for a 
romantic couple like the Ferriers to roam in. Another 
friend writes of Wilson's later home at Elleray : ' In his 
hospitable house, where the wits of Blackwood gathered 
at intervals and visited individually in season and out of 
season, his daughter saw strange men of genius, such as 
few young ladies had the fortune to see, and heard talk 
such as hardly another has the fortune to hear. Lockhart, 
with his caricatures and his incisive sarcasm, was an 
intimate of the house. The Ettrick Shepherd, with his 
plaid and homely Doric, broke in occasionally, as did 
also De Quincey, generally towards midnight, when he 
used to sit pouring forth his finely-balanced, graceful 
sentences far on among the small hours of the morning. 
There were students, too, year after year, many of them 
not undistinguished, and some of whom had, we doubt 
not, ideas of their own regarding the flashing hazel eyes 
of their eloquent Professor's eldest daughter.' But her 
cousin was her choice, though wealth offered no attrac- 
tion, and neither side had reason to regret the marriage 
of affection. 

At the time of his marriage Ferrier had been practising 
at the Bar, probably with no great measure of success, 
seeing that his heart was not really set upon his work. 



36 FAMOUS SCOTS 

It was at this period that he first began to write, and his 
first contribution to literature took the form of certain 
papers contributed to Blackwood's Magazine, the subject 
being the ' Philosophy of Consciousness.' From that 
time onwards Ferrier continued to write on philosophic 
or literary topics until his death, and many of these 
writings were first published in the famous magazine. 

Before entering, however, on any consideration of 
Ferrier's writings and of the philosophy of the day, it 
might be worth while to try to picture to ourselves the 
social conditions and feelings of the time, in order that 
we may get some idea of the influences which surrounded 
him, and be assisted in our efforts to understand his 
outlook. 

In the beginning of the nineteenth century Scot- 
land had been ground down by a strange tyranny — the 
tyranny of one man as it seemed, which man was Henry 
Dundas, first Viscount Melville, who for many long years 
ruled our country as few countries have been ruled 
before. What this] despotism meant it is difficult for us, 
a century later, to figure to ourselves. All offices were 
dependent on his patronage ; it was to him that everyone 
had to look for whatever post, advancement, or con- 
cession was required. And Dundas, with consummate 
power and administrative ability, moulded Scotland to 
his will, and by his own acts made her what she was 
before the world. But all the while, though unperceived, 
a new spirit was really dawning; the principles of the 
Revolution, in spite of everything, had spread, and all 
unobserved the time-spirit made its influence felt below 
a surface of apparent calm. It laid hold first of all of 
the common people — weavers and the like : it roused 
these rough, uneducated men to a sense of wrong and the 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 37 

resolution to seek a remedy. Not much, however, was 
accomplished. Some futile risings took place — risings 
pitiable in their inadequacy — of hard-working weavers 
armed with pikes and antiquated muskets. Of course, 
such rebels were easily suppressed ; the leaders were 
sentenced to execution or transportation, as the case 
might be ; but though peace apparently was restored and 
public meetings to oppose the Government were rigor- 
ously suppressed, trade and manufactures were arising : 
Scotland was not really dead, as she appeared. A new 
life was dawning : reform was in the air, and in due time 
made its presence felt. But the memory of these times 
of political oppression, when the franchise was the privi- 
lege of the few, and of the few who were entirely out of 
sympathy with the most part of their countrymen or their 
country's wants, remained with the people just as did the 
1 Killing-time ' of Covenanting days two centuries before. 
Time heals the wounds of a country as of an individual, 
but the operation is slow, and it is doubtful whether 
either period of history will ever be forgotten. At any- 
rate, if they are so as this century closes, they were not in 
the Scotland known to Terrier ; they were still a very 
present memory and one whose influence was keenly 
felt. 

And along with this political struggle yet another 
struggle was taking place, no less real though not so 
evident. The religion of the country had been as dead 
as was the politics in the century that was gone — dead in 
the sleep of Moderatism and jndirTerentism. But it, too, 
had awakened ; the evangelical school arose, liberty of 
church government was claimed, a liberty which, when 
denied it, rent the Established Church in twain. 

In our country it has been characteristic that great 



3 8 FAMOUS SCOTS 

movements have usually begun with those most in touch 
with its inmost life, the so-called lower orders of its 
citizens. The nobles and the kings have rather followed 
than taken the lead. In the awakening of the present 
century this at anyrate was the case. * Society,' so 
called, remained conservative in its view for long after 
the people had determined to advance. Scott, it must 
be remembered, was a retrogressive influence. The 
romanticism of his novels lent a charm to days gone by 
which might or might not be deserved ; but they also 
encouraged their readers to imagine a revival of those 
days of chivalry as a possibility even now, when men were 
crying for their rights, when they had awakened to a sense 
of their possessions, and would take nothing in their place. 
The real chieftains were no more ; they were imitation 
chieftains only who were playing at the game, and it was 
a game the clansmen would not join in. Few exercises 
could be more strange than first to read the account of 
Scottish life in one of the immortal novels by Scott 
dealing with last century, and then to turn to Miss 
Ferrier or Gait, depicting a period not so very different. 
Setting aside all questions of genius, where comparison 
would be absurd, it would seem as if a beautiful enamel 
had been removed, and a bare reality revealed, somewhat 
sordid in comparison. The life was not really sordid, — 
realism as usual had overshot its mark,— but the enamel 
had been somewhat thickly laid, and might require to be 
removed, if truth were to be revealed. 

So in the higher grades of Edinburgh society the 
enamel of gentility has done its best to prejudice us 
against much true and genuine worth. It was character- 
ised by a certain conventional unconventionality, a cer- 
tain ' preciosity ' which brought it near deserving a still 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 39 

stronger name, and it maintained its right to formulate 
the canons of criticism for the kingdom. Edinburgh, it 
must be recollected, was no 'mean city,' no ordinary 
provincial town. It was still esteemed a metropolis. It 
had its aristocracy, though mainly of the order of those 
unable to bear the greater expense of London life. It 
had no manufactories to speak of, no mercantile class to 
'vulgarise' it; it possessed a University, and the law 
courts of the nation. But above all it had a literary 
society. In the beginning of the century it had such men 
as Henry Mackenzie, Dugald Stewart, John Playfair, Dr. 
Gregory, Dr. Thomas Brown, not to speak of Scott and 
Jeffrey — a society unrivalled out of London. And in later 
days, when these were gone, others rose to fill their places. 
Of course, in addition to the movement of the working 
people, there was an educated protest against Toryism, 
and it was made by a party who, to their credit be it 
said, risked their prospects of advancement for the prin- 
ciples of freedom. In their & ryism, we must 
recollect, meant something very different from what it 
might be supposed to signify in our own. It meant an 
attitude of obstruction as regards all change from estab- 
lished standards of whatever kind; it signified a point of 
view which said that grievances should be unredressed 
unless it was in its interest to redress them. The new 
party of opposition included in its numbers Whig lawyers 
like Gibson Craig and Henry Erskine, in earlier days, and 
Francis Jeffrey and Lord Cockburn later on ; a party of 
progress was also formed within the Church, and the 
same within the precincts of the University. The move- 
ment, as became a movement on the political side largely 
headed by lawyers, had no tendency to violence ; it was 
moderate in its policy, and by no means revolutionary — 



4 o FAMOUS SCOTS 

indeed it may be doubted whether there^ever was much 
tendency to revolt even amongst those working men who 
expressed themselves most strongly. The advance party, 
however, carried the day, and when Ferrier began to write, 
Scotland was in a very different state from that of twenty 
years before. The Reform Bill had passed, and men had 
the moulding of their country's destiny practically placed 
within their hands. In the University, again, Sir William 
Hamilton, a Whig, had just been appointed to the Chair 
of Logic, while Moncreiff, Chalmers, and the rest, were 
prominent in the Church. The traditions of literary 
Edinburgh at the beginning of the century had been kept 
up by a circle amongst whom Lockhart, Wilson, and De 
Quincey may be mentioned ; now Carlyle, who had left 
Edinburgh not long before, was coming into notice, and 
a new era seemed to be dawning, not so glorious as the 
past, but more untrammelled and more free. 

How philosophy was affected by the change, and how 
Ferrier assisted in its progress, it is our business now to 
tell; but we must first briefly sketch the history of 
Scottish speculation to this date, in order to show the 
position in which he found it. 



CHAPTER III 

PHILOSOPHY BEFORE FERRIER'S DAY 

In attempting to give some idea of philosophy as it was 
in Scotland in the earlier portion of the present century, 
we shall have to go back two hundred years or there- 
about, in order to find a satisfactory basis from which to 
start. For philosophy, as no one realised more than 
Ferrier, is no arbitrary succession of systems following 
one upon another as their propounders might decree ; it 
is a development in the truest and highest significance 
of that word. It means the gradual working out of the 
questions which reason sets to be answered ; and though 
it seems as if we had sometimes to turn our faces 
backwards, and to revert to systems of bygone days, 
we always find, when we look more closely, that in our 
onward course we have merely dropped some thread in 
our web, the recovery of which is requisite in order 
that it may be duly taken up and woven with the rest. 

At the time of which we write the so-called ' Scottish 
School ' of Reid, Stewart, and Beattie reigned supreme 
in orthodox Scotland ; it had undisputed power in the 
Universities, and besides this obtained a very reputable 
place in the estimation of Europe, and more especially 
of France. As it was this school more especially that 
Ferrier spent much of his time in combating, it is its 
history and place that we wish shortly to describe. To 



42 FAMOUS SCOTS 

do so, however, it is needful to go back to its real 
founder, Locke, in order that its point of view may fairly 
be set forth. 

In applying his mind to the views of Locke, the 
ordinary man finds himself arriving at very commonplace 
and well-accustomed conceptions. Locke, indeed, may 
reasonably be said to represent the ideas of common, 
everyday life. The ordinary man does not question the 
reality of things, he accepts it without asking any 
questions, and bases his theories — scientific or otherwise 
— upon this implied reality. Locke worked out the 
theory which had been propounded by Lord Bacon, 
that knowledge is obtained by the observation of facts 
which are implicitly accepted as realities ; and what, it 
was asked, could be more self-evident and sane ? It is 
easy to conceive a number of perceiving minds upon 
the one hand, ready to take up perceptions of an outside 
material substance upon the other. The mind may be 
considered as a piece of white paper — a tabula rasa, as 
it was called — on which external things may make what 
impression they will, and knowledge is apparently 
explained at once. But though Locke certainly suc- 
ceeded in making these terms the common coin of 
ordinary life, difficulties crop up when we come to 
examine them more closely. After all, it is evident, the 
only knowledge our mind can have is a knowledge of its 
own ideas — ideas which are, of course, caused by 
something which is outside, or at least, as Locke would 
say, by its quality. Now, from this it would appear that 
these ' ideas ' after all come between the mind and the 
1 thing,' whatever it is, that causes them — that is to say, 
we can perhaps maintain that we only know our 
* ideas,' and not things as in themselves. Locke 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 43 

passes into elaborate distinctions between primary 
qualities of things, of which he holds exact representa- 
tions are given, and secondary qualities, which are not 
in the same position ; but the whole difficulty we meet 
with is summed up in the question whether we really 
know substance, or whether it is that we can only hope 
to know ideas, and ' suppose ' some substratum of 
reality outside. Then another difficulty is that we can 
hardly really know our selves. How can we know that 
the self exists ; and if, like Malebranche, we speak of 
God revealing substance to us, how do we know about 
God? We cannot form any ' general' impressions, 
have any ' general ' knowledge ; only a sort of con- 
glomeration of unrelated or detached bits of knowledge 
can possibly come home to us. The fact is, that modern 
philosophy starts with two separate and self-existent 
substances ; that it does not see how they can be 
combined, and that the ' white - paper ' theory is so 
abstract that we can never arrive at self-consciousness 
by its means. 

Berkeley followed out the logical consequences of 
Locke, though perhaps he hardly knew where these 
would carry him. He acknowledged that we know 
nothing but ideas — nothing outside of our mind. But 
he adds the conception of self, and by analogy the con- 
ception of God, who acts as a principle of causation. 
Whether there is necessary connection in his sensations 
or not, he does not say. Hume followed with criticism, 
scathing and merciless. He states that all we know of 
is the experience we have; and by experience he 
signifies perceptions. Ideas to him are nothing more 
than perceptions, and whether they are ideas simply of 
the mind, or ideas of some object, is to him the same. 



44 FAMOUS SCOTS 

If we begin to imagine such conceptions'* as those of 
universality or necessity, of God or the self, beyond a 
complex of successive ideas, we are going farther than 
experience permits. We cannot connect our perceptions 
with an object, nor can we get beyond what experience 
allows. Custom merely brings about certain conclusions 
which are often enough misleading. It connects effect 
and cause, really different events : it brings about ideas 
of morality very often deceptive. We have our custom of 
regarding things, another has his — who can say which is 
correct ? All we can do is, what seems a hopeless task 
enough — we can try to show how these unrelated 
particulars seem by repetition to produce an illusionary 
connection in our minds. 

Both mind and matter appear, then, to be wanting, 
and experience alone is suggested as the means of solving 
the difficulty in which we are placed — a point in the 
argument which left an opportunity open to Kant to 
suggest a new development, to ask whether things being 
found inadequate in producing knowledge, we might not 
ask if knowledge could not be more successful with 
things. But it is the Scottish lines of attempted solu- 
tion that we wish to follow out, and not the German. 
Perhaps they are not so very different. 

Philosophy, as Reid found it, was in a bad way 
enough, as far as the orthodox mind of Scotland was 
concerned. All justification for belief in God, in 
immortality, in all that was held sacred in a century of 
much orthodoxy if little zeal, was gone. Such things 
might be believed in by those who found any comfort in 
so believing, but to the educated man who had seriously 
reflected on them, they were anachronisms. The very 
desperateness of the case, however, seemed to promise 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 45 

a remedy. Men could not rest in a state of permanent 
scepticism, in a world utterly incapable of being 
rationally explained. Even the propounder of the 
theories allowed this to be true ; and as for others, they 
felt that they were rational beings, and this signified 
that there was system in the world. 

A champion arose when things were at their worst in 
Thomas Reid, the founder, or at least the chiefest orna- 
ment, of the so-called Scottish School of Philosophy. 
He it was who set himself to add the principle of the 
coherence of the Universe, and the consequent possi- 
bility of establishing Faith once more in the world. 
Reid, to begin with, instead of looking at Hume's results 
as serious, regarded them as necessarily absurd. He 
started a new theory of his own, the theory of Immediate 
Perception, which signified that we are able immediately 
to apprehend — not ideas only, but the Truth. And 
how, we may ask, can this be done ? 

It had been pointed out first of all that sensations 
as understood by Locke — that is, the relations so called 
by Locke — might be separated from sensation in itself; 
in fact, that these first pertained to mind. Hence 
we have a dualistic system given us to start with, and 
the question is how the two sides are to be connected ? 
What does this theory of Immediate Perception, which 
Reid puts forward as the solution, mean ? Is it just 
a mechanical union of two antitheses, or is it some- 
thing more? 

As to this last, perhaps the real answer would be 
that it both is, and is not. That is, the philosophy of 
Reid would seem still dualistic in its nature ; it certainly 
implies the mechanical contact of tw T o confronting sub- 
stances whose independence is vigorously maintained, 



46 FAMOUS SCOTS 

in opposition to the idealistic system which it super- 
seded ; but in reference to Reid we must recollect that 
his theory of Immediate Perception was also something 
more. As regards sensation, for example, he says that 
we do not begin with unrelated sensations, but with 
judgment — that is, we refer our sensations to a per- 
manent subject, ' I.' Sensations - suggest ' the nature 
of a mind and the belief in its existence. And this 
signifies that we have the power of making inferences 
— how we do not exactly know, but we believe it to be, 
not by any special reasoning process, but by the 
1 common - sense ' innately born within us. Common- 
sense is responsible for a good deal more — for the con- 
ceptions of existence and of cause, for instance; for 
Reid acknowledges that sensations alone must fail to 
account for ideas such as those of extension, space, 
and motion. This standpoint seems indeed as if it did 
not differ widely from the Kantian, but at the same 
time Reid appears to think that it is not an essential 
that feelings should be perceptively referred to an 
external object ; the first part of the process of per- 
ception is carried on without our consciousness — the 
mental sensation merely follows — and sensation simply 
supposes a sentient being and a certain manner in 
which that being is affected, which leaves us much 
where we were, as far as the subjectivity of our ideas is 
concerned. He does not hold that all sensation is a 
percept involving extension and much else — involving, 
indeed, existence. 

Following upon Reid, Dugald Stewart obtained a 
very considerable reputation, and he was living and 
writing at the time Ferrier was a young man. His 
main idea would, however, seem to have been to guard 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 47 

his utterances carefully, and enter upon no keen dis- 
cussions or contentions : when a bold assertion is 
made, it is always under shelter of some good authority. 
But his rounded phrases gained him considerable 
admiration, as such writing often does. He carried — 
perhaps inadvertently — Reid's views farther than he 
would probably have held as justifiable. He says we 
are not, properly speaking, conscious of self or the 
existence of self, but merely of a sensation or some 
other quality, which, by a subsequent suggestion of the 
understanding, leads to a belief in that which exercises 
the quality. This is the doctrine of Reid put very 
crudely, and in a manner calculated to bring us back 
to unrelated sensation in earnest. Stewart adopted a 
new expression for Reid's 'common -sense/ i.e. the 
'fundamental laws of belief/ which might be less 
ambiguous, but never took popular hold as did the 
first. 

There were many others belonging to this school be- 
sides Reid and Stewart, whom it would be impossible 
to speak of here. The Scottish Philosophy had its 
work to do, and no doubt understood that work — the 
first essential in a criticism : it endeavoured to vindicate 
perception as against sensational idealism, and it only 
partially succeeded in its task. But we must be careful 
not to forget that it opened up the way for a more 
comprehensive and satisfactory point of view. It was 
with Kant that the distinction arose between sensation 
and the forms necessary to its perception, the form of 
space and time, and so on. As to this part of the theory 
of knowledge, Reid and his school were not clear ; they 
only made an effort to express the fact that something 
was required to verify our knowledge, but they were 



48 FAMOUS SCOTS 

far from satisfactorily attaining to their goal. The very 
name of * common-sense ' was misleading — making people 
imagine, as it did, that there was nothing in philosophy 
after ,all that the man in the street could not know by 
applying the smallest modicum of reflection to the 
subject. Philosophy thus came to be considered as 
superfluous, and it was thought that the sooner we got 
rid of it and were content to observe the mandates of 
our hearts, the better for all concerned. 

What, then, was the work which Ferrier placed before 
himself when he commenced to write upon and teach 
philosophy? He was thoroughly and entirely dis- 
satisfied with the old point of view, the point of view 
of the ' common - sense ' school of metaphysicians, 
to begin with. Sometimes it seems as though we 
could not judge a system altogether from the 
best exponent of it, although theoretically we are 
always bound to turn to him. In a national philosophy, 
at least, we want something that will wear, that will 
bear to be put in ordinary language, something which 
can be understood of the people, which can be assimi- 
lated with the popular religion and politics — in fact, 
which can really be lived as well as thought ; and it is 
only after many years of use that we can really tell 
whether these conditions have been fulfilled. For 
this reason we are in some measure justified in taking 
the popular estimate of a system, and in considering 
its practical results as well as the value of its theory. 
Now, the commonly accepted view of the eighteenth- 
century philosophers in Scotland is that there is nothing 
very wonderful about the subject — like the Bourgeois 
Gentilhomme of Moliere, we are shown that we have 
been philosophising all our lives, only we never knew 






JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 49 

it. ' Common-sense ' — an attribute with which we all 
believe we are in some small measure endowed — ex- 
plains everything if we simply exercise it, and that is 
open to us all : there has been much talk, it would 
seem, about nothing; secrets hidden to wise men are 
revealed to babes, and we have but to keep our minds 
open in order to receive them. 

We are all acquainted with this talk in speculative 
regions of knowledge, but we most of us also know how 
disastrous it is to any true advancement in such direc- 
tions. What happens now is just what happened in 
the eighteenth century. Men relapse into a self-satisfied 
indolence of mind : in religion they are content with 
believing in a sort of general divine Beneficence which 
will somehow make matters straight, however crooked 
they may seem to be ; and in philosophy they are 
guided by their instincts, which teach them that what 
they wish to believe is true. 

Xow, all this is what Ferrier and the modern move- 
ment, largely influenced by German modes of thought, 
wish to protest against with all their might. The 
scepticism of Hume and Gibbon was logical, if utterly 
impossible as a working creed and necessarily ending 
in absurdity ; but this irrational kind of optimism was 
altogether repugnant to those who demanded a reason- 
able explanation of themselves and of their place in 
nature. The question had become summed up in one 
of superlative importance, namely, the distinction that 
existed between the natural and supernatural sides of 
our existence. The materialistic school had practically 
done away with the latter in its entirety, had said that 
nature is capable of being explained by mechanical 
means, and that these must necessarily suffice for us. 
4 



5 o FAMOUS SCOTS 

But the orthodox section adopted other lines ; it 
accepted all the ordinarily received ideas of God, 
immortality, and the like, but it maintained the exist- 
ence of an Absolute which can only be inferred, but 
not presented to the mind, and, strangest of all, de- 
clared that the 'last and highest consecration of all 
true religion must be an altar " To the unknown and 
unknowable God."' 1 This so-called 'pious' philo- 
sophy declares that ' To think that God is, as we can 
think Him to be, is blasphemy,' and 'A God under- 
stood would be no God at all.' The German philosophy 
saw that if once we are to renounce our reason, or trust 
to it only within a certain sphere, all hope for us is 
lost, as far as withstanding the attack of outside enemies 
is concerned. We are liable to sceptical attacks from 
every side, and all we can maintain against them is a 
personal conviction which is not proof. How, then, 
was the difficulty met? 

Kant, as we have said, made an important develop- 
ment upon the position of Hume. Hume had arrived 
at the point of declaring the particular mind and matter 
equally incompetent to afford an ultimate explanation of 
things, and he suggested experience in their place. This 
is the first note of the new philosophy : experience, not 
a process of the interaction of two separate things, mind 
on the one hand, matter on the other, but something 
comprehending both. This, however, was scarcely real- 
ised either by Hume or Kant, though the latter came 
very near the formulation of it. Kant saw, at least, that 
things could not produce knowledge, and he therefore 
changed his front and suggested starting with the know- 
ledge that was before regarded as result — a change in 
1 Philosophy of the Unconditioned (Sir William Hamilton), p. 15. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 51 

point of view that caused a revolution in thought 
similar to that caused in our ideas of the natural world 
by the introduction of the system of Copernicus. Still, 
while following out his Copernican theory, Kant did 
not go far enough. His methods were still somewhat 
psychological in nature. He still regarded thought as 
something which can be separated from the thinker ; he 
still maintained the existence of things in themselves 
independent and outside of thought. He gives us a 
1 theory' of knowledge, when what we want to reach 
is knowledge itself, and not a subjective conception 
of it. 

Here it is that the Absolute Idealism comes in — the 
Idealism most associated with the name of Hegel. Hegel 
takes experience, knowledge, or thought, in another and 
much more comprehensive fashion than did his pre- 
decessors. Knowledge, in fact, is all-comprehending ; 
it embraces both sides in itself, and explains them as 
1 moments/ i.e. complementary factors in the one Reality. 
To make this clearer : we have been all along taking 
knowledge as a dualistic process, as having two sides 
involved in it, a subject and an object. Now, Hegel 
says our mistake is this : we cannot make a separation 
of such a kind except by a process of abstraction : 
the one really implies the other, and could not possibly 
exist without it. We may in our ordinary pursuits do 
so, without doubt ; we may concentrate our attention on 
one side or the other, as the case may be ; we may look 
at the world as if it could be explained by mechanical 
means, as, indeed, to a certain point it can. But, Hegel 
says, these explanations are not sufficient ; they can 
easily be shown to be untrue, when driven far enough : 
the world is something larger j it has the ideal side as 



52 FAMOUS SCOTS 

well as the real, and, as we are placed, they are both 
necessarily there, and must both be recognised, if we are 
to attain to true conceptions. 

Without saying that Ferrier wholly assimilated the 
modern German view, — for of course he did not, — he 
was clearly largely influenced by it, more largely perhaps 
than he was even himself aware. It particularly met the 
present difficulties with which he was confronted. The 
negative attitude was felt to be impossible, and the other, 
the Belief which then, as now, was so strongly advocated, 
the Belief which meant a more or less blind acceptance 
of a spiritual power beyond our own, the Belief in the 
God we cannot know and glory in not being able so to 
know, he felt to be an equal impossibility. Ferrier, and 
many others, asked the question, Are these alternatives 
exhaustive? Can we not have a rational explanation of 
the world and of ourselves? can we not, that is, attain 
to freedom ? The new point of view seemed in some 
measure to meet the difficulty, and therefore it was 
looked to with hope and anticipation even although its 
bearing was not at first entirely comprehended. Ferrier 
was one of those who perceived the momentous conse- 
quences which such a change of front would cause, and 
he set himself to work it out as best he could. In an 
interesting paper which he writes on 'The Philosophy 
of Common-Sense,' with special reference to Sir William 
Hamilton's edition of the works of Dr. Reid, we see in 
what way his opinions had developed. 

The point which Ferrier made the real crux of the 
whole question of philosophy was the distinction which 
exists between the ordinary psychological doctrine of 
perception and the metaphysical. The former drew a 
distinction between the perceiving mind and matter, and 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 53 

based its reasonings on the assumed modification of our 
minds brought about by matter regarded as self-existent, 
i.e. existent in itself and without regard to any perceiv- 
ing mind. Now, Ferrier points out that this system of 
' representationalism,' of representative ideas, necessarily 
leads to scepticism ; for who can tell us more, than that 
we have certain ideas — that is, how can it be known that 
the real matter supposed to cause them has any part at 
all in the process? Scepticism, as we saw before, has 
the way opened up for it, and it doubts the existence of 
matter, seeing that it has been given no reasonable 
grounds for belief in it, while Idealism boldly denies its 
instrumentality and existence. What then, he asks, of 
Dr. Reid and his School of Common-Sense? Reid can- 
not say that matter is known in consciousness, but what 
he does say is that something innately born within us 
forces us to believe in its existence. But then, as Ferrier 
pertinently points out, scepticism and idealism do not 
merely doubt and deny the existence of a self-existent 
matter as an object of consciousness, but also because it 
is no object of belief. And what has Reid to show for 
his beliefs? Nothing but his word. We must all, 
Ferrier says, be sceptics or idealists j we are all forced 
on to deny that matter in any form exists, for it is only 
self-existent matter that we recognise as psychologists. 
Stewart tries to reinstate it by an appeal to ' direct 
observation/ an appeal which, Ferrier truly says, is 
manifestly absurd ; reasoning is useless, and we must, it 
would appear, allow any efforts we might make towards 
rectifying our position to be recognised as futile. 

But now, Ferrier says, the metaphysical solution of 
the problem comes in. We are in an impasse, it would 
appear ; the analysis of the given fact is found impossible. 



54 FAMOUS SCOTS 

But the failure of psychology opens up the way to meta- 
physic. ' The turning-round of thought from psychology 
to metaphysic is the true interpretation of the Platonic 
conversion of the soul from ignorance to knowledge, 
from mere opinion to certainty and satisfaction ; in other 
words, from a discipline in which the thinking is only 
apparent^ to a discipline in which the thinking is rea/. y 
'The difference is as great between "the science of the 
human mind" and metaphysic, as it is between the 
Ptolemaic and the Copernican astronomy, and it is very 
much of the same kind.' It is not that metaphysic 
proposes to do more than psychology ; it aims at nothing 
but what it can fully overtake, and does not propose to 
carry a man farther than his tether extends, or the sur- 
roundings in which he finds himself. Metaphysic in the 
hands of all true astronomers of thought, from Plato to 
Hegel, if it accomplishes more, attempts less. 

Metaphysic, Ferrier says, demands the whole given 
fact, and that fact is summed up in this : ' We apprehend 
the perception of an object,' and nothing short of this 
suffices — that is, not the perception of matter, but our 
apprehension of that perception, or what we before called 
knowledge, ultimate knowledge in its widest sense. And 
this given fact is unlike the mere perception of matter, 
for it is capable of analysis and is not simply subjective 
and egoistic. Psychology recognises perception on the 
one hand (subjective), and matter on the other (object- 
ive), but metaphysic says the distinction ought to be 
drawn between ' our apprehension ' and ' the perception- 
of-matter/ the latter being one fact and indivisible, and 
on no account to be taken as two separate facts or 
thoughts. The whole point is, that by no possible means 
can the perception-of-matter be divided into two facts or 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 55 

existences, as was done by psychology. And Ferrier 
goes on to point out that this is not a subjective ideal- 
ism, it is not a condition of the human soul alone, but it 
* dwells apart, a mighty and independent system, a city 
fitted up and upheld by the living God.' And in 
authenticating this last belief Ferrier calls in internal 
convictions, ' common-sense,' to assist the evidence of 
speculative reason, where, had he followed more upon 
the lines of the great German Idealists, he might have 
done without it. 

Now, Ferrier continues, we are safe against the cavils of 
scepticism ; the metaphysical theory of perception steers 
clear of all the perplexities of representationalism ; for it 
gives us in perception one only object, the perception of 
matter ; the objectivity of this datum keeps us clear from 
subjective idealism. 

From the perception of matter, a fact in which man 
merely participates, Ferrier infers a Divine mind, of 
which perceptions are the property : they are states of 
the everlasting intellect. The exercise of the senses is 
the condition upon which we are permitted to apprehend 
or participate in the objective perception of material 
things. This, shortly, is the position from which he 
starts. 



CHAPTER IV 

' FIERCE WARRES AND FAITHFUL LOVES ' 

1 If Ferrier's life should be written hereafter,' said one, 
who knew and valued him, just after his death, 1 ' let his 
biographer take for its motto these five words from the 
Faery Queen which the biographer of the Napiers has 
so happily chosen.' Ferrier's life was not, what it per- 
haps seems, looking back on its comparatively uneventful 
course, consistently calm and placid, — a life such as is 
commonly supposed to befit those who soar into lofty 
speculative heights, and find the ' difficult air ' in which 
they dwell suited to their contemplative temperaments. 
Ferrier was intrepid and daring in his reasoning ; a sort 
of free lance, Dr. Skelton says he was considered in 
orthodox philosophical circles ; a High Tory in politics, 
yet one who did not hesitate to probe to the bottom the 
questions which came before him, even though the task 
meant changing the whole attitude of mind from which he 
started. And once sure of his point, Ferrier never hesi- 
tated openly to declare it. What he hated most of all 
was ' laborious dulness and consecrated feebleness ' ; 
commonplace orthodoxy was repugnant to him in the 
extreme, and possibly few things gave him more sincere 
pleasure than violently to combat it. The fighting in- 
stinct is proper to most men who have ' stuff' in them, 
1 The late Sir John Skelton, K. C. B. 
5^ 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 57 

and Ferrier in spite of his slight and delicately made 
frame was manly to the core. But, as the same writer 
says, ' though combative over his books and theories, 
his nature was singularly pure, affectionate, and tolerant. 
He loved his friends even better than he hated his foes. 
His prejudices were invincible ; but, apart from his pre- 
judices, his mind was open and receptive — prepared to 
welcome truth from whatever quarter it came/ Such a 
keen, eager nature was sure to be in the fray if battle 
had to be fought, and we think none the worse of him 
for that. Battles of intellect are not less keen than 
battles of physical strength, and much more daring and 
subtlety may be called into play in the fighting of them ; 
and Ferrier, refined, sensitive, fastidious, as he was, had 
his battles to fight, and fought them with an eagerness 
and zeal almost too great for the object he had in view. 

After his marriage in 1837, Ferrier devoted his atten- 
tion almost entirely to the philosophy he loved so well. 
He did not succeed —did not perhaps try to succeed — at 
the Bar, to which he had been called. Many qualities 
are required by a successful advocate besides the subtle 
mind and acute reasoning powers which Ferrier un- 
doubtedly possessed : possibly — we might almost say 
probably — these could have been cultivated had he 
made the effort. He had, to begin with, a fair junior 
counsel's practice, owing to his family connections, and 
this might have been easily developed ; his ambition, 
however, did not soar in the direction of the law courts, 
and he did not give that whole-hearted devotion to the 
subject which is requisite if success is to follow the efforts 
of the novice. But if he was not attracted by the work 
at the Parliament House, he was attracted elsewhere ; 
and to his first mistress, Philosophy, none could be 



58 FAMOUS SCOTS 

more faithful. In other lines, it is true, he read much 
and deeply : literature in its widest sense attracted him 
as it would attract any educated man. Poetry, above 
all, he loved, in spite of the tale sometimes told against 
him, that he gravely proposed turning In Memoriam 
into prose in order to ascertain logically ' whether its 
merits were sustained by reason as well as by rhyme ' — a 
proposition which is said greatly to have entertained its 
author, when related to him by a mutual friend. Works 
of imagination he delighted in — all spheres of literature 
appealed to him ; he had the sense of form which is 
denied to many of his craft ; he wrote in a style at once 
brilliant and clear, and carelessness on this score in 
some of the writings of his countrymen irritated him, as 
those sensitive to such things are irritated. He has 
often been spoken of as a living protest against the 
materialism of the age, working away in the quiet, 
regardless of the busy throng, without its ambitions and 
its cares. Sometimes, of course, he temporarily deserted 
the work he loved the best for regions less remote ; 
sometimes he consented to lecture on purely literary 
topics, and often he wrote biographies for a dictionary, 
or articles or reviews for Blackwood's Edinburgh Maga- 
zine. As it was to this serial that Ferrier made his most 
important contributions, both philosophic and literary, 
for the next fifteen years, and as it was in its pages that 
the development of his system may be traced, a few 
words about its history may not be out of place, although 
it is a history with which we have every reason to be 
familiar now. 

About 1816 the Edinburgh Revieiv reigned supreme 
in literature. What was most strange, however, was that 
the Conservative party, so strong in politics, had no 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 59 

literary organ of their own — and this at a time when the 
line of demarcation between the rival sides in politics 
was so fixed that no virtue could be recognised in an 
opponent or in an opponent's views, even though they 
were held regarding matters quite remote from politics. 
The Whig party, though in a minority politically and 
socially, represented a minority of tremendous power, 
and possessed latent capabilities which soon broke forth 
into action. At this time, for instance, they had literary 
ability of a singularly marked description ; they were not 
bound down by traditions as were their opponents, and 
were consequently much more free to strike out lines of 
their own, always of course under the guidance of that 
past - master in criticism, Francis Jeffrey. Although 
his words were received as oracular by his friends, this 
dictatorship in matters of literary taste was naturally 
extremely distasteful to those who differed from him, 
especially as the influence il exerted was not a local or 
national influence alone, but one which affected the 
opinion of the whole United Kingdom. For a time, no 
doubt, the party was so strong that the matter was not 
taken as serious, but it soon became evident that a 
strenuous effort must be made if affairs were to be 
placed on a better footing, and if a protest were to be 
raised against the cynical criticism in which the Re- 
viewers indulged. Consequently, in April 181 7, a literary 
periodical called the Edinburgh MontJily Magazine was 
started by two gentlemen of some experience in literary 
matters, with the assistance of Mr. William Blackwood, 
an enterprising Edinburgh publisher, whose reputation 
had grown of recent years to considerable dimensions. 
This magazine was not a great success : the editors and 
publisher did not agree, and finally Mr. Blackwood 



60 FAMOUS SCOTS 

purchased the formers* share in it, took over the maga- 
zine himself, and, to make matters clear, gave it his 
name ; thus in October of the same year the first 
number of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine appeared. 
From a quiet and unobtrusive ' Miscellany ' the magazine 
developed into a strongly partisan periodical, with a 
brilliant array of young contributors, determined to 
oppose the Edinburgh Review regime with all its might, 
and not afraid to speak its mind respecting the literary 
gods of the day. Every month some one came under 
the lash \ Coleridge, Leigh Hunt, and many others were 
dealt with in terms unmeasured in their severity, and in 
the very first number appeared the famous ' Chaldee 
Manuscript ' which made the hair of Edinburgh society 
stand on end with horror. In spite of the immoderate 
expression of its opinions, the magazine flourished — it 
was fresh and novel, and much genius was enlisted in 
writing for its pages. The editor's identity was always 
matter for conjecture ; but though the contributors in- 
cluded a number of distinguished men, such as Mac- 
kenzie, De Quincey, Hogg, Eraser Tytler, and Jameson, 
there were two names which were always associated with 
the periodical — those of John Gibson Lockhart and 
Ferrier's uncle and father-in-law, John Wilson. The 
latter in particular was often held to be the real editor 
whom everyone was so anxious to discover, but this 
belief has been emphatically denied. Although the 
management might appear to be in the control of a 
triumvirate, Blackwood himself kept the supreme 
power in his hands, whatever he might at times find it 
politic to lead outsiders to infer. 

When Ferrier began to write for it in 1838, Blackivood's 
Magazine was not of course the same fiery publication of 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 61 

twenty years before ; nor were Ferrier's articles for the 
most part of a nature such as to appeal strongly to an 
excitable and partisan public. Things had changed 
much since 1817 : the Reform Bill had passed; the 
politics of the country were very different; the Toryism 
of Ferrier and his friends was quite unlike the Toryism 
of the early part of the century : it more resembled the 
Conservatism or Traditionalism of a yet later date, which 
objected to violent changes only owing to their violence, 
and by no means to reform, if gradually carried out. 
This policy was reflected in Maga's pages, to which 
Ferrier would naturally turn when he wished to reach 
the public ear, both from family association and heredi- 
tary politics. His first contribution was certainly not 
light in character ; nor did it resemble the * bright, racy ' 
articles which are supposed to be the requisite for 
modern serial publications. The subject was ' An 
Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness/ and 
it consisted of a series of papers contributed during two 
successive years (1838 and 1839), which really embodied 
the result of the work in which Ferrier had during the 
past few years been engaged, and signified a complete 
divergence from the accepted manner of regarding con- 
sciousness, and a protest against the ' faith-philosophy ' 
which it became Ferrier's special mission to combat. 
Perhaps it is only in Scotland that a public could be 
found sufficiently interested in speculative questions to 
make them the subject of interest to a fairly wide and 
general circle, such as would be likely to peruse the 
pages of a monthly magazine like Blackwood's. But of 
this interesting contribution to metaphysical speculation, 
in which Ferrier commenced his philosophical career by 
grappling with the deepest and most fundamental ques- 



6a FAMOUS SCOTS 

tions in a manner, as Hamilton acknowledges, hitherto 
unattempted in the humbler speculations of this country, 
we shall speak later on, as also of his further contribu- 
tions to the magazine. 

In the year 182 1, Sir William Hamilton had been a 
candidate for the Chair of Moral Philosophy along with 
John Wilson, Ferrier's future father-in-law. In spite of 
Wilson's literary gifts, there is probably no question that 
of the two his opponent was best qualified to teach the 
subject, owing to the greatness of his philosophical attain- 
ments and the profundity of his learning. But in the 
temper of the time the merits of the candidates could 
not be calmly weighed by the Town Council, the 
electing body ; and Hamilton was a Whig, and a Whig 
contributor to that atheistical and Jacobin Edinburgh 
Review, and was therefore on no account to be elected. 
The disappointment to Hamilton was great ; but it was 
slightly salved by his subsequent election — to their credit 
be it said, for Whig principles were far from popular 
among them — by the Faculty of Advocates to a chair 
rendered vacant in 1821 by the resignation of Professor 
Fraser Tytler — the Chair of Civil History. In 1836, how- 
ever, Sir William's merits at length received their reward, 
and he became the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. 
When Ferrier probably felt the need of some more 
lucrative form of employment, he applied for the Chair 
of History once occupied by Hamilton, and rendered 
vacant by the resignation of Professor Skene ; he obtained 
the appointment in 1842, and held it for four years 
subsequently. Large remuneration it certainly did not 
bring with it, but the duties were comparatively and 
correspondingly light. 1 Indeed, as attendance was not 
1 There was a movement amongst the students to secure the chair 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRTER 6 



j 



required of students studying for the degrees in Arts, 
or for any of the professions, the difficulty was to form a 
regular class at all. The salary paid to Sir William was 
^ioo a year, and even this small sum was apparently 
only to be obtained with difficulty. The main advantage 
of holding the chair at all was the prospect it held out of 
succeeding later on to some more important office. Of 
Ferrier's class-work at this time we know but little. The 
reading requisite for the post was likely to prove useful in 
later days, and could not have been uncongenial : but 
probably in a class sometimes formed — if tradition speak 
aright — of one solitary student, the work of preparation 
would not be taken very seriously. Anyhow, there was 
plenty of time left to pursue his philosophic studies ; and 
in i $44-45, when Sir William Hamilton came so near to 
death, Ferrier acted as his substitute, and carried on his 
classes with zeal and with success — a success which was 
warmly acknowledged by tin- Professor. Of course, 
though he conducted the examinations and other class- 
work, Ferrier merely read the lectures written by Hamilton ; 
there might, one would fancy, be found to be a lack 
of continuity between the deliverances of the two staunch 
friends but uncompromising opponents. Any differences 
of opinion made, however, no difference in their friend- 
ship. The distress of Ferrier on his friend's sudden 
paralytic seizure has already been described ; to his 
affectionate nature it was no small thing that one for 
whom he had so deep a regard came so very near death's 
door. Every Sunday while in Edinburgh, he spent the 
afternoon in walking with his friend and in talking of the 
subjects which most interested both. 

for Thomas Carlyle, then coming into fame amongst them ; but 
Ferrier was chosen by the patrons, the Faculty of Advocates. 



64 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Of these early days Professor Fraser writes : — { My 
personal intercourse with Ferrier was very infrequent, but 
very delightful when it did occur. He was surely the 
most picturesque figure among the Scottish philosophers 
— easy, graceful, humorous, eminently subtle, and with a 
fine literary faculty — qualities not conspicuous in most of 
them. When I was a private member of Sir W. 
Hamilton's advanced class in metaphysics in 1838-39, 
and for some years after, I was often at Sir William's 
house, and Ferrier was sometimes of the party on these 
occasions. I remember his kindly familiarity with us 
students, the interest and sympathy with which he entered 
into metaphysical discussion, his help and co-operation 
in a metaphysical society which we were endeavouring to 
organise. His essays on the Philosophy of Conscious- 
ness were then being issued in Blackwood, and were felt 
to open questions strange at a time when speculation 
was almost dead in Scotland — Reid at a discount, Brown 
found empty, and Hamilton, with Kant, only struggling 
into ascendency. 

'In these days, if I remember right, Ferrier lived in 
Carlton Street, Stockbridge— an advocate whose interest 
was all in letters and philosophy, a student of simple 
habits, fond of German, not a conspicuous talker, of easy 
polished manners and fond of a joke, with a scientific 
interest in all sorts of facts and their meanings, and 
perhaps a disposition to paradox. I remember the 
interest he took in phenomena of " mesmeric sleep," as it 
was called. An eminent student was sometimes induced 
for experiment to submit himself to mesmeric influence 
at these now far-off evening gatherings at Sir William's. 
To Ferrier the phenomena suggested curious speculation, 
but I think without scientific result.' The subject was 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 65 

one on which Ferrier afterwards wrote in Blackwood^ 
and it was a subject which always had the deepest 
interest for him. It, however, as he believed, cost him 
the friendship of Professor Cairns, a frequent subject at 
these informal stances, and one whom Ferrier rashly 
twitted for what he evidently regarded as a weakness, 
his easily accomplished subjection to the application of 
mesmeric power. 

In 1845 the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the Univer- 
sity of St. Andrews, then occupied by Dr. Cook, and 
once held by Dr. Chalmers, became vacant by the 
former's death, and Ferrier entered as a candidate. 
Highly recommended as he was by Hamilton and others, 
Ferrier was the successful applicant, and St. Andrews 
became his home for nineteen years thereafter, or until 
his death in 1864. 

Such is a bald statement of the facts of what would 
seem a singularly uneventful life. Life divided between 
the study, library, and classroom, there was little room 
for incident outside the ordinary incidents of domestic 
and academic routine. Yet Ferrier never sank into the 
conventionality which life in a small University town 
might induce. His interests were always fresh; he was 
constantly engaged in writing and rewriting his lectures, 
which, unlike some of his calling, he was not content to 
read and re-read from year to year unaltered. His 
thoughts were constantly on his subject and on his 
students, planning how best to communicate to them the 
knowledge that he was endeavouring to convey — a life 
which came as near the ideal of philosophic devotion as 
is perhaps possible in this nineteenth century of turmoil 
and unrest. Still, gentleman and man of culture as he 
was, Ferrier had a fighting side as well, and that side was 

5 



66 FAMOUS SCOTS - 

once or twice aroused in all the vehemence of its native 
strength. 

Twice Ferrier made application for a philosophical 
chair in the town of his birth and boyhood. In 1852, 
when his father-in-law, John Wilson, retired, he became a 
candidate for the professorship of Moral Philosophy in 
the University of Edinburgh ; and then again, in 1856, he 
offered himself as a successor to Sir William Hamilton 
as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics. On neither 
occasion was he successful, and on both occasions he 
suffered much from calumnious statements respecting his 
* German ' and unorthodox views — a kind of calumny 
which is more than likely to arise and carry weight when 
the judges are men of honourable character but of little 
education, men to whom a shibboleth is everything and 
real progress in learning nothing. On the first occasion 
there were several candidates who submitted their 
applications, but on Professor M 'Cosh's retiring from 
the combat, the two who were 'in the running' were 
Professor Ferrier of St. Andrews and Professor Macdougall 
of the Free Church College in Edinburgh. It is curious, 
as instancing the strange change which had come over 
the politics of Scotland since the Reform Act had passed, 
that the very influences that told in favour of John 
Wilson in applying for a professorship in 1821 should 
thirty years later tell as strongly against his son-in-law. 
In 1852, nine years after the Disruption, so greatly had 
matters altered, that the Free Church liberal party carried 
all before it in the Corporation. And although the 
liberal journals of the earlier date w r ere never tired of 
maintaining liberty of thought and action, yet when 
circumstances changed, the liberty appeared in a some- 
what different light; and the qualification of being a 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 67 

Whig was added to a considerable number of appoint- 
ments both in the Church and in the State. Professor 
Macdougall, Ferrier's opponent, had held his professor- 
ship in the Free Church College, lately established for 
the teaching of theology and preparation of candidates 
for the ministry. On the establishment of the College, 
the subject of Moral Philosophy was considered to be 
one which should be taught elsewhere than in an 
' Erastian ' University, and accordingly it was thought 
necessary to institute the chair occupied by Professor 
Macdougall. In the first instance the class was eminently 
successful in point of numbers, and the corresponding 
class in the University proportionately suffered ; but as 
time went on the attendance in the Free Church class 
dwindled, and it was considered that this chair need not 
be continued, but that students might be permitted to 
attend at the University. When Professor Macdougall 
now offered himself as candidate for the University chair, 
there was of course an immediate outcry of a 'job.' 
Rightly or wrongly it was said, ' Let the Free Church 
have a Professor of her own body and opinions if she 
will, but why force him upon the Established Church as 
well ; are her country and ministers to be indoctrinated 
with Voluntary principles ? ' There might not have been 
much force in the argument had the status of the two 
candidates been the same, but it was evident to all 
unprejudiced observers that this was far from being the 
case. And it could hardly be pleaded in justification of 
the Council's action that they formed their judgment 
upon the testimonials laid before them ; for Ferrier's far 
exceeded his rival's in weight, if not in strength of 
expression, and included in their number communications 
from such men as Sir William Hamilton, De Quincey, 



68 FAMOUS SCOTS " 

Bulwer, Alison, and Lockhart — men the most distin- 
guished of the age. De Quincey's opinion of Ferrier is 
worth quoting. He says that he regards him as 'the 
metaphysician of greatest promise among his contem- 
poraries either in England or in Scotland/ and the 
testimonial which at this time he accorded Ferrier is 
as remarkable a document as is often produced on such 
occasions, when commonplace would usually appear to 
be the object aimed at. It is several pages in length, 
and goes fully into the question not only of what Ferrier 
was, but also of what a candidate ought to be. De 
Quincey speaks warmly of Ferrier's services in respect 
of the English rendering of Faust before alluded to, and 
points out the benefit there is in having had an education 
which has run along two separate paths — paths differing 
from one another in nature, doubtless, but integrating 
likewise — the one being that resulting from his inter- 
course with Wilson and his literary coterie, the other 
that of the course of study he had pursued on German 
lines. He sums up Ferrier's philosophic qualities by 
saying, ' Out of Germany, and comparing him with the 
men of his own generation, such at least as I had any 
means of estimating, Mr. Ferrier was the only man 
who exhibited much of true metaphysical subtlety, as 
contrasted with mere dialectical acuteness.' For this 
testimonial, we may incidentally mention, Ferrier writes a 
most interesting letter of thanks, which is published in 
his Remains. As a return for the kindness done him, he 
1 sets forth a slight chart of the speculative latitudes ' he 
had reached, and which he ' expects to navigate without 
being wrecked' — really an admirably clear epitome in so 
short a space of the argument of the I?istitutes. 

But to come back to the contest : in spite of testi- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 69 

monials, the fact remained that Ferrier had studied 
German philosophy, and might have imbibed some 
German infidelity, while his opponent made no pro- 
fessions of being acquainted either with the German 
philosophy or language, besides having the advantage of 
being a Liberal and Free Churchman ; and he was 
consequently appointed to the chair. Of course, there 
was an outcry. The election was put forward as an 
argument against the abolition of Tests, though in this 
case Ferrier, as an Episcopalian, might be said to be 
a Dissenter equally with his opponent. It was argued 
that the election should be set aside unless the necessary 
subscription were made before the Presbytery of the 
bounds. For a century back such tests had not been 
exacted as far as the Moral Philosophy chair was con- 
cerned, nor would they probably have been so had 
Ferrier himself been nominated. But though the Pres- 
bytery concerned was in this case prepared to go all 
lengths, it appeared that it was not in its members that 
the initiative was vested, the practice being to take 
the oath before the Lord Provost or other authorised 
magistrate. Consequently, indignant at discovering their 
impotence, the members of the body retaliated by de- 
claring that they would divert past the new Professor's 
class the students who should afterwards come within their 
jurisdiction, and thus, by their foolish action, they prob- 
ably did their best to bring about the result they depre- 
cated so much — the abolition of Tests in their entirety. 

Ecclesiastical feeling ran high at the time, and things 
were said and done on both sides which were far from 
being wise or prudent. But the effect on a sensitive 
nature like Ferrier' s is easy to imagine. This w T as the 
first blow he had met with, and being the first he did not 



7o FAMOUS SCOTS 

take it quite so seriously to heart. But when it was 
followed years later by yet another repulse, signifying 
to his view an attitude of mind in orthodox Scotland 
opposed to any liberty of thought amongst its teachers, 
Ferrier felt the day for silence was ended, and, wisely or 
unwisely, he published a hot defence of his position in a 
pamphlet entitled Scottish Philosophy, the Old and the 
New. On this occasion the question had risen above 
the mere discussion of Church and Tests ; the whole 
future of philosophy in Scotland was, he believed, at 
stake ; it was time, he felt, that someone should speak 
out his mind, and who more suitable than the leader of 
the modern movement and the one, as he considered it, 
who had suffered most by his opinions ? 

Without having lived through the time or seen some- 
thing of its effects, it would be difficult to realise how 
narrow were the bounds allowed to speculative thought 
some forty years ago in Scotland. Since the old days of 
Moderatism and apathy there had, indeed, been a great 
revival of interest in such matters as concerned Belief. 
Men's convictions were intense and sincere; and what 
had once been a subject of convention and common 
usage, had now become the one important topic of their 
lives. So far the change was all for the good ; it pro- 
moted many important virtues ; it made men serious 
about serious things ; it made them realise their re- 
sponsibilities as human beings. But as those who lived 
through it, or saw the results it brought about, must also 
know, it had another side. A certain spiritual self- 
assurance sprang into existence, which, though it was 
bred of intense reality of conviction, brought with it 
consequences of a specially trying kind to those who did 
not altogether share in it. As so often happens when a 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 71 

new light dawns, men thought that to them at length all 
truth had been revealed, and acted in accordance with 
this belief. They formulated their systems — hide-bound 
almost as before — and decided in their minds that in 
them they had the standards for judging of their fellows. 
But Truth is a strange will-o'-the-wisp after all, — when 
we think we have reached her, she has eluded our grasp, 
— and so when those rose up who said the end of the 
matter was not yet, a storm of indignation fell upon their 
heads. This is what happened with Ferrier and the 
orthodox Edinburgh world. There might, it was said 
by the latter, be men lax enough to listen to reasonings 
such as his, and even to agree with them, but for those 
who knew the truth as it was in its reality, such pander- 
ing to latitudinarian doctrines was unpardonable. And 
as at this time the Town Council of Edinburgh was 
seriously inclined (some of the members, in the second 
instance, were the same as those who had adjudicated in 
the former contest), Ferrier's fate was, he considered, 
sealed before the question really came before them. 
Whether the matter was quite as serious as Ferrier 
thought, it is perhaps unnecessary to say. At anyrate, 
there was a considerable element of truth in the view he 
took of it, and he was justified in much — if not in all — 
of what he said in his defence. The Institutes, first 
published in 1854, had just reached a second edition, 
so that his views were fairly before the world. What 
caused the tremendous outburst of opposition we must 
take another chapter to consider ; and then we must try 
to trace the course of Ferrier's development from the 
time at which he first began to write on philosophic 
subjects, and when he openly broke with the Scottish 
School of Philosophy. 



CHAPTER V 

DEVELOPMENT OF ' SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, THE OLD AND 
THE NEW 5 — FERRIER AS A CORRESPONDENT 

It is probably in the main a wise rule for defeated 
candidates to keep silence about the cause of their 
defeat. But every rule has its exception, and there are 
times in which we honour a man none the less because 
— contrary to the dictates of worldly wisdom — he gives 
voice to the sense of injustice that is rankling in his 
mind. Ferrier had been disappointed in 1852 in not 
obtaining the Chair of Moral Philosophy for which he 
was a candidate ; but then he had not published the 
work which has made his name famous, and his claims 
were therefore not what afterwards they became. But 
when in 1856, after the Institutes had been two years 
before the public, and just after the book had reached a 
second edition, another defeat followed on the first, 
Ferrier ascribed the result to the opposition to, and 
misrepresentation of, his system, and claimed with some 
degree of justice that it was not his merits that were 
taken into account, but the supposed orthodoxy, or want 
of orthodoxy, of his views. For this reason he issued a 
' Statement ' in pamphlet form, entitled Scottish Philo- 
sophy, the Old and the JVew, dealing with the matter 
at length. 

In Ferrier's view, a serious crisis had been arrived at 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 73 

in the history of the University of Edinburgh, and one 
which might lead to yet further evil were not something 
done to place matters on a better footing. Had the 
Town Council, the electing body, been affected simply 
by personal or sectarian feelings, it would not so much 
have mattered ; but when Ferrier was forced to the con- 
clusion that what they did must end in the curtailment 
of all liberty in regard to philosophical opinion, so far as 
the University was concerned, he felt the time had come 
to speak. For a quarter of a century he had devoted 
the best part of his life and energies to the study of 
philosophy, and he held he had a duty to discharge to it 
as one of the public instructors of the land. What cause, 
he asked, had a body like the Council to say originality 
was to be proscribed and independence utterly for- 
bidden? Through their liberalism tests had been 
practically abolished : was another test, far more exact- 
ing than the last, to be substituted in their place ? A 
candidate for a philosophers chair need not be a 
believer in Christ or a member of the Established 
Church ; but he must, it would appear, believe in Dr. 
Reid and the Hamiltonian system of philosophy. 

The ' common-sense ' school, against which Ferrier's 
attacks were mainly directed, too often found its satis- 
faction in commonplace statements of obvious facts, and 
we cannot wonder that Ferrier should ask why Scottish 
students should be required to pay for ' bottled air 7 
while the whole atmosphere is * floating with liquid balm 
that could be had for nothing?' — a question, indeed, 
which cannot fail to strike whoever tries to wade through 
certain tedious dissertations of the time, all express- 
ing truths which seem incontrovertible in their nature, 
but all of which are also inexpressibly uninteresting. 



74 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Philosophy to Ferrier is not the elementary science that 
it would appear from these discourses : loose ways of 
thinking which we ordinarily adopt must, he considers, 
be rectified and not confirmed. And yet he disclaims 
the accusation that he has conjured with ' the portentous 
name of Hegel,' or derived his system from German soil. 
Hegel, he constantly confesses, is frequently to him 
inexplicable, and his system is Scottish to the core. 

A warm debt of gratitude to Hamilton, Ferrier, it is 
true, acknowledges even while he differs from his views 
— a debt to one whose * soul could travel on eagles' 
wings,' and from whom he had learned so much — whom, 
indeed, he had loved so warmly. Hamilton had not 
agreed with Ferrier; he had thought him wrong, and 
told him so, and Ferrier was the last to resent this 
action, or think the less of him for not recanting at his 
word the conclusions of a lifetime's labour. Provocation, 
the younger man acknowledges, he had often given him, 
and ' never was such rough provocation retaliated with 
such gentle spleen.' 

But what most roused Ferrier's ire was, not the 
criticisms of men like Hamilton, but such as were con- 
tained in a pamphlet published by the Rev. Mr. Cairns 
of Berwick, afterwards Principal Cairns of the United 
Presbyterian College — a pamphlet which he believed 
had biassed the judgment of the electors in making their 
decision. We now know that indirectly they had re- 
quested Mr. Cairns's advice, and he, considering that 
orthodoxy was being seriously threatened by German 
rationalistic views, had formulated his indictment against 
Ferrier in the strongest possible terms. He believed that 
in Ferrier's writings there was an attempt to substitute 
formal demonstration of real existence for ' belief,' 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 75 

thereby making faith of no effect ; also that he denied 
the separate existence of the material world and the 
mind, and that (and probably this is the most serious 
count in the charge) the substantiality of the mind was 
subverted, and consequently belief in personal identity 
rendered impossible. He further said that by Ferrier 
absolute existence is reduced to a mere relation, and 
finally, that his conception of a Deity is inadequate, and 
metaphysics and natural theology are divorced. 

We cannot, of course, deal in detail with Ferrier's 
energetic repudiation of the accusation brought so 
specifically against him. The heat with which he wrote 
seems scarcely justified now that we look back on it 
from the standpoint of more than forty years ahead. 
But we do not realise how much such accusations meant 
at the time at which they were made — how they affected 
not a man's personal advancement only, but also the 
opinion in which he was held by those for whose opinion 
he cared the most. The greater toleration of the present 
may mean corresponding lack of zeal or interest, but 
surely it also means a recognition of the fact that men 
may choose their own methods in the search for truth 
without thereby endangering the object held in view. 
Mr, Cairns's attack — without intention, for he was an 
honourable man and able scholar — was unjust. Ferrier 
does not claim to prove existence — he accepts it, and only 
reasons as to what it is ; as to the material world, he 
acknowledges not a mere material world, but one along 
with which intelligence is and must be known ; the separate 
existence of mind he likewise denies only in so far as 
to assert that mind without thought is nonsense. The 
substantiality of the mind he maintains as the one great 
permanent existence amid all fluctuations and con- 



76 FAMOUS SCOTS 

tingencies, and without personal identity, he tells us, there 
can be no continued consciousness amid the changes of 
the unfluctuating existence called the ' I ? — though in 
this regard one feels that something is left to say in 
criticism, from the orthodox point of view. Absolute 
existence is indeed reduced into relations, but into 
relations together constituting the truth, if contradictory 
in themselves ; that is, a concrete, as distinguished from 
an abstract truth. As to the final accusation of the 
insufficiency of Ferrier's view of the Deity, it is true he 
states that the Deity is not independent of His creative 
powers, revelation and manifestation ; but surely this is 
a worthier conception than the old one of the Unknown 
God, which tells us to worship we know not what. 

The pity is that in this publication, and another on 
very similar lines, 1 Ferrier allowed himself to turn from 
philosophical to personal criticism, and to say what he 
must afterwards have regretted. In the second edition 
of his first pamphlet these references were modified, and 
in any case they must be ascribed to the quick temper 
with which he was naturally endowed, and which led him 
to express his feelings more strongly than he should, 
rather than to deliberate judgment. No one was more 
sensible than he of the danger to which he was subject 
of allowing himself to be carried off his feet in the heat 
of argument. This is very clearly shown by a letter to a 
friend quoted in the Remains : ' One thing I would 
recommend, not to be too sharp in your criticism of 
others. No one has committed this fault oftener, or is 
more disposed to commit it than myself; but I am 
certain that it is not pleasing to the reader, and after an 

1 A Letter to the Lord Advocate on the Necessity of a Change 
in the Patronage of the University of Edinburgh. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 77 

interval it is displeasing to oneself. In the heat and 
hurry of writing a lecture I often hit a brother 
philosopher as I think cleverly enough, but on coming 
to it coolly next year I very seldom repeat the 
passage.' An admission and acknowledgment which 
does a proud man like Ferrier credit. 

One cannot help speculating on the effect of 
the mass of criticism and counter-criticism (for there 
were others who took up the cudgels on either side, 
once the controversy was fairly started) upon the 
unfortunate Town Councillors of Edinburgh, to whom 
they were directed : one would imagine them to wish 
their powers curtailed if they were to involve their 
mastering several conflicting theories of existence, and 
forming a just judgment regarding their respective merits. 
The exercise of patronage is always a difficult and 
thankless task, but surely in no case could it have been 
more difficult than in this, and we can hardly wonder 
now that the electors simply took the advice of those 
they deemed most worthy to bestow it; certainly the 
candidate finally selected was one who did everything in 
the occupation of his chair to disarm the criticism then 
brought to bear upon the appointment. In cooler 
moments probably none would have been readier to 
admit this than was Ferrier ; but when he wrote he was 
smarting under the sense of having failed to receive a 
fair consideration of his claims, and he undoubtedly 
spoke more strongly than the case required. 

After this controversy was over, Ferrier's interest in 
polemical philosophy in great degree waned ; and in the 
quiet of the old University town of St. Andrews — the 
town which provides so rich a fund of historic interest 
combined with the academic calm of University life 



78 FAMOUS SCOTS "* 

— Ferrier passed the remainder of his days working at ^ 
his favourite subjects. Sometimes these were varied by 
incursions into literature, in which his interest grew ever 
keener ; and economics, which was one of the subjects 
he was bound to teach. His life w r as uneventful ; it was 
varied little by expeditions into the outer world, much 
as these would have been appreciated by his friends. 
His whole interest was centred in his work and in the 
University in which he taught, and whose well-being was 
so dear to him. Of his letters, few, unfortunately, have 
been preserved; and this is the more unfortunate that 
he had the gift, now comparatively so rare, of expressing 
himself with ease, and in bright, well-chosen language. 
Of his correspondents one only seems to have preserved 
the letters written to him, Mr. George Makgill of Kem- 
back, a neighbouring laird in Fife and advocate in 
Edinburgh, whose similarity in tastes drew him towards 
the St. Andrews Philosophy Professor. 

Of these letters there are some of sufficient interest to 
bear quotation. One of the first is written in October 
1851 from St Andrews, and plunges into the deepest 
topics without much preface. Ferrier says : — 

' What is the Beginning of Philosophy ? Philosophy 
must have have the same Beginning that all other things 
have, otherwise there would be something peculiar or 
anomalous or sectarian in its origin, which would destroy 
its claims to genuineness and catholicity. What, then, 
is the Beginning of all things and consequently the 
Beginning of Philosophy? 

1 Answer — Want. 

8 Want is the Beginning of Philosophy because it is the 
Beginning of all things. Is the Beginning of Philosophy 
a bodily want? No. Why not? Because nothing 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 79 

that may be given to the Body has any effect in appeas- 
ing the want. The Beginning of Philosophy, then, must 
be an intellectual want — a Hunger of the Soul. 

1 But all wants have their objects in which they seek 
and find their gratification. What then is the object of 
the hunger of the soul ? 

' Answer — Knowledge. 

* Philosophy is a Hunger of the Soul after Knowledge. 
What is Knowledge? — reduced through various inter- 
mediate stages to question, what is the common and 
essential quality in all knowledge — the quality which 
makes knowledge knowledge ? Answer approached by 
raising question : What is the essential quality in all 
food — the quality which makes food food? This is 
obviously its physically nutritive quality. Whatever has 
the nutritive property is food; whatever has it not is 
nut food, however like excellent beef and mutton it 
may be. So in regard to knowledge, its common and 
essential quality — the quality in virtue of which know- 
ledge is knowledge — is its nutritive quality. Whatever 
nourishes and satisfies the mind is knowledge, as what- 
ever nourishes and satisfies the body is food. The 
intellectually nutritive property in knowledge is the 
common and essential property in knowledge. What is 
the nutritive quality in knowledge? Answer (without 
beating about the bush) — Truth. 

1 What is TRUTH ? Answer — Truth is whatever is 
supported by Evidence. 

' What is Evidence ? Evidence is whatever is 
supported by Experience. What is Experience? Here 
we stop ; we can only divide Experience into its kinds, 
which are two, Experience of Fact and. Experience of Pure 
Reason. Observe the manoeuvre in the last line by 



8o FAMOUS SCOTS ■> 

which you knaves of the anti-metaphysical school are 
outwitted. You oppose Pure Reason to Experience^ and 
philosophers generally assent to the distinction. This at 
once gives your school the advantage, for the world will 
always cleave to experience in preference to anything 
else, leaving us metaphysicians, who are supposed to 
abandon experience, hanging as it were in baskets in the 
clouds. But / do not abandon experience as the 
ultimate foundation of all knowledge ; only I maintain 
that there are two kinds of experience, both of which are 
equally experience, the experience of Fact and the experi- 
ence of Pure Reason. You are thus deprived of your 
advantage. I am as much a man of experience as you are.' 

Evidently it had been a question with Ferrier whether 
he should use the expression Experience, so well known 
to us now, or substitute for it Consciousness, which, as a 
matter of fact, he afterwards did : ' Why is it so grievous 
and fatal an error to confound Experience and Conscious- 
ness ? Is not a man's experience the whole developed 
contents of his consciousness? I cannot see how this 
can be denied. And therefore, before you wrote, I was 
sivithering (and am so still) whether I should not make 
consciousness the basis of the whole superstructure — the 
raw material of the article which in its finished state is 
knowledge. After all, the dispute, I suspect, is mainly 
verbal.' 

There are many evidences in these letters that Ferrier 
was not neglecting German Philosophy, for taking 
Experience as his basis he shows how it may be 
divided into Wesen (an sich), Seyn (fur sich\ and the 
Begriff (anundfiirsicli) on the lines of German meta- 
physics. As to the ' Common-Sense ? Philosophy, he 
expresses himself in no measured terms ; ' I am glad 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 81 

we agree in opinion as to the merits of the Common- 
Sense Philosophy. Considered in its details and ac- 
cessories, it certainly contains many good things ; but, 
viewed as a whole and in essentia/ib'us, it is about the 
greatest humbug that ever was palmed off upon an 
unwary world. As an instance among many which 
might be adduced, of the ambiguity of the word, and of 
the vacillation of the members of this school, it may be 
remarked that while Reid made the essence of common- 
sense to consist in this, that its judgments are not con- 
clusions obtained by ratiocination ( Works, Sir W. 
Hamilton's edition, p. 425), Stewart, on the contrary, 
holds that these judgments are "the result of a train of 
reasoning so rapid as to escape notice " (Elements, vol. ii. 
p. 103). Sir W.'s one hundred and six witnesses are a 
most conglomerate set, and a little cross-examination 
would try their mettle severely.' 

The most important part of Ferrier's system was his 
working out of the ■ Theory of Ignorance,' in which, 
indeed, he might congratulate himself in having in great 
measure broken open new ground. He says of it : 
* Hurrah, tvprjKa^ I have discovered the Lata of 
Ignorance — and if I had a hecatomb of kain hens at 
my command I would sacrifice them instanter to the 
propitious patron of metaphysics. Look you here. The 
Law of Knowledge is this, that, in order to know any 
one thing we must always know two things ; hoc cum alio 
— object plus subject - thing -f me. This is the unit 
of knowledge. Analogously, only inversely, in order to 
be ignorant of any o?ie thing we must be ignorant of two 
things — liujus cum alio — object plus subject - thing 
+ me. This is the unit of ignorance/ Apparently, in 
spite of full explanation of his newly-discovered view, 
6 



82 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Ferrier's correspondent had failed to take it in, and 
consequently he gently rails at him for ' sticking at the 
axiom/ and wishes him to help him to a name for what 
he calls the ' Agnoiology ' for want of something better. 
He goes on : c I take it that I have caught you in my 
net, and that wallop about as you will I shall land you at 
last. I have now little fear that I shall succeed in 
convincing you, or at anyrate less hardened sinners, 
that the knowledge of object-subject is a self-contradic- 
tion, and that therefore object-subject, or matter per se, 
is not a thing of which we can with any sense or pro- 
priety be said to be ignorant. Be this as it may, you 
must at anyrate recognise in this doctrine a very great 
novelty in philosophy. The more incogitable a thing 
becomes, the more ignorant of it do we become — that 
is the natural supposition. Is it not then a bold and 
original stroke to show that when a thing passes into 
absolute incogitability we cease that instant to be 
ignorant of it ? I believe that doctrine to be right and 
true, but I am certain that, obvious as it is, it has been 
nowhere anticipated or even hinted at in the bygone 
career of speculation. I claim this as my discovery. In 
the doctrine of Ignorance I believe that I have abso- 
lutely no precursor. What think you ? ' 

Mr. Makgill had accused Ferrier of anthropomorphism 
in his system, and he replies as follows : — ' You cannot 
charge me with anthropomorphism without being guilty 
of it yourself. Don't you see that " the Beyond " all 
human thought and knowledge is itself a category of 
human thought ? There is much naivete in the procedure 
of you cautious gentry who would keep scrupulously 
within the length of your tether : as if the conception of 
a without that tether was not a mode of thinking. Will 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 83 

you tell me why you and Kant and others don't make 
existence a category of human thought ? This has always 
puzzled me. 

* Surely the man who made extension and time mere 
forms of human knowledge need have made no bones of 
existence. Meanwhile, as the post is just starting, I beg 
you to consider this, that the anthropomorphist and the 
anti-anthropomorphists are both of necessity anthropomor- 
phists, and for my part I maintain that the anti-man is 
the bigger anthropomorphist of the two/ This criticism 
of the * Beyond ' and its unknowableness, while yet it 
was acknowledged, is as much to the point in the 
present day as it was in those, and its statement brings 
forcibly before our minds the truth of Goethe's well- 
known saying : ' Der Mensch begrtift niemals wie 
antJiropomorpIiisui cr istJ 

The doctrine of Ignorance, so essential to Ferrier's 
system, he found it hard tc make clear to others : — c I 
am astonished at your not seeing the use, indeed the 
absolute necessity, of a true doctrine of ignorance. 
This blindness of yours shows me what I may expect 
from the public ; and how careful I must be, if I would 
go down at all, to render myself perfectly clear and 
explicit. Don't you see that a correct doctrine of 
ignorance is necessary for two reasons— first, on account 
of the false doctrine of ignorance universally prevalent, 
one which has hitherto rendered, and must ever render, 
anything like a scientific ontology impossible ; and, 
ndfy t because this correct theory of ignorance follows 
inevitably from my doctrine of knowledge ? This, which 
I consider a very strong recommendation, an indispens- 
able condition of the theory of ignorance, is the very 
ground on which you object to it. Surely you would 



84 FAMOUS SCOTS 

not have me establish a doctrine of ignorance which was 
not consistent with my doctrine of knowledge. Surely 
I am entitled to deduce all that is logically deducible 
from my principles. Your meaning I presume is that 
my doctrine of ignorance flows so manifestly from my 
doctrine of knowledge that it is unnecessary to develop 
and parade it. There I differ from you. It flows 
inevitably, but I cannot think that it flows obviously. 
Else why was it never hit upon until now ? . . . Don't 
tell me, then, that my conclusions that matter per se, 
Ding an sick, is what it is impossible for us to be ignorant 
of, just because it is absolutely unknowable (and for no 
other reason). Don't tell me that this conclusion is so 
obvious as not to require to be put down in black and 
white, when we find Kant and every other philosopher 
drawing, but most erroneously, the directly opposite 
conclusion from the same premises. Matter per se, 
JDing an sick, was of all things that of which we were 
most ignorant ! ! and the ruin of metaphysics was the 
consequence of their infatuated blindness. Your objec- 
tion, then, to my doctrine of ignorance, viz., that it is 
fixed in the very fixing of the doctrine of knowledge, 
and therefore does not require explication or elucida- 
tion, I cannot regard as a good objection. It is true 
that the one of these fixes the other; but it requires 
some amount of explanation and demonstration to make 
this palpable to the understandings even of the most 
acute, and I am not sure that even you (yes, put on 
your best pair of spectacles, you will need them) yet see 
how impossible it is for us to be ignorant of matter per 
se, or of anything which is absolutely unknowable.' 

This matter of the Ding an sick Ferrier felt to be 
the crucial point in his system : ' You talk glibly of 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 85 

"existence/^ se" as maids of fifteen do of puppy dogs. 
This shows that, like a carpet knight, you have never 
smelt the real smoke of metaphysical battle, but at most 
have taken part in the sham fights and listened to the 
shotless popguns of the martinet of Konigsberg. You 
will find existence per se a tougher customer than you 
imagine.' 

As to the Institutes^ then on the verge of publication, 
the author says : 'lam inclined to follow your advice, 
so far, in regard to the title of the work, and to call it 
the " Theory of Knowing and Being," leaving out 
ignorance. But why an introduction to metaphysics? 
If this be an introduction to metaphysics, pray, Mr. 
Pundit, what and where are metaphysics themselves ? 
No, sir, it shall be called a text-book of metaphysics, 
meaning thereby, that it is a complete body (and soul) 
of metaphysics. You are an uncommonly modest fellow 
in so far as the protestations of your frie?ids are 
concerned ! ' 

This correspondence appears to have continued 
regularly for some years, and to have dealt almost 
entirely with metaphysical and economic subjects — the 
subjects which were constantly in Ferrier's mind, as he 
taught them in the University and tried to work them 
out in his study. Doubtless it was of the greatest use 
to him to be able to write about them as he would, had 
opportunity served, have spoken ; and this opportunity 
was afforded by his friendship with his correspondent, 
whose interest in philosophy was keen, and whose 
critical faculties were exceptionally acute, although he 
never accomplished any original work on philosophical 
lines. 

Of other letters few have been preserved. Absence 



86 FAMOUS SCOTS 

from home did not make a reason for writing, for 
Ferrier's journeyings were but few. In 1859, however, 
he made an expedition to England to see his newly- 
married daughter, Lady Grant, start for India with her 
husband, Sir Alexander Grant, after his appointment to 
the Chancellorship of the University of Bombay. From 
Southampton he made his way to the scene of his 
schooldays at Greenwich, from which place he writes to 
one of the sons of Dr. Bruce of Ruth well, with whom 
he spent a happy childhood : ' One of our fetes was a 
sumptuous fish dinner at Greenwich. I call it sump- 
tuous, but in truth the fish was utter trash, the best of 
them not comparable to Loch Fyne herring. Whitebait 
is the greatest humbug of the age, though it may be 
heresy to say so in your neighbourhood. ' This journey 
was concluded by a visit to Oxford and to the Lake 
country, with both of which Ferrier's associations were 
so many and so agreeable. 

The following is a letter, dated 21st March 1862, to 
Professor Lushington, his friend and biographer: — 'I 
have been very remiss in not acknowledging your 
photograph, which came safe, and is much admired by 
all who have seen it. I must get a book for its recep- 
tion and that of some other worthies, otherwise my 
children will appropriate it for their collections, with 
which the house is swarming. . . . The ego is an 
infinite and active capacity of never being anything in 
particular. I will uphold that definition against the 
world. Did you never feel how much you revolted from 
being fixed and determined ? Depend upon it, that is 
the true nature of a spirit — never to be any determinate 
existence. This is our real immutability — for death can 
get hold only of that which has a determinate being. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 87 

We stand loose from all determinations. That is our 
chance of escaping his clutches." 

This expresses Ferrier's views and hopes for an after 
life : he looked forward to an immortality in which the 
particular and determinate should disappear and only 
the absolute element remain — in which death should 
mean only the rising from the individual into a true and 
universal life. It is a matter to which he frequently 
refers, and always.in terms of a very similar nature. We 
shall see how, when the end was coming near, his view r s 
remained the same, and he was able to face the 
inevitable without a qualm or shadow of complaint, 



CHAPTER VI 

FERRIER'S SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY — PHILOSOPHICAL 
WRITINGS 

'If one were asked/ says Professor Fraser, 'for the 
English writings which are fitted in the most attractive 
way to absorb a reader of competent intelligence and 
imagination in the final or metaphysical question con- 
cerning the Being in which we and the world of sensible 
things participate, Berkeley's Dialogues, Hume's Inquiry 
into Human Understanding, and some of the lately 
published Philosophical Remains of Professor Ferrier 
are probably those which would best deserve to be 
mentioned. ' 

It has been given to few philosophers of modern days 
to write on philosophic questions in a manner at once so 
lucid and so convincing as that of Ferrier. Nor can it in 
his case be said that matter is sacrificed to form, for the 
writer does not hesitate to ■ nail his colours to thejnast,' 
as he himself expresses it, and to tackle questions the 
most vital in their character in a straightforward and 
uncompromising fashion. His earliest published writings, 
as we have seen, took the form of a series of seven 
articles, which appeared, roughly speaking, in alternate 
months, between February of 1838 and March of 1839. 
These articles, entitled An Introduction to the Philosophy 
of Consciousness, represented the results of their author's 

85 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 89 

work during the years which had elapsed since he first 
began to be really interested in philosophy, and to feel 
that the way of looking at it adopted almost universally 
in Scotland was not satisfying to himself, or in any way 
defensible. 

The whole point in Ferrier's view turns upon the way 
in which we look at 'Mind.' 'The human mind, to 
speak it profanely/ says Ferrier, ' is like the goose that 
laid the golden eggs. The metaphysician resembles the 
analytic poulterer who slew it to get at them in a lump, 
and found nothing for his pains. . . . Look at thought, 
and feeling, and passion, as they glow in the pages of 
Shakespeare — golden eggs indeed ! Look at the same 
as they stagnate on the dissecting-table of Dr. Brown, and 
marvel at the change. Behold how shapeless and extinct 
they have become ! ■ Locke began by saying there are no 
original ideas, simply impressions from without ; Hume 
then says cause and effect are incapable of explanation, 
and the notion which we form of them is a nonentity, 
seeing that we have a series of impressions alone to work 
from ; Reid says there is a mind and there is an object, 
and calls in common-sense to interpret between the two. 
But the mistake all through is very evident: man looks 
at Nature in a certain way, interprets her by certain cate- 
gories, and then he turns his eye upon himself, endeav- 
ouring thereby to judge of what he finds within by 
methods of a similar kind. And the human mind cannot 
be so ' objectised ' ; it is something more than the sum 
of its 'feelings/ 'passions/ and 'states of mind.' Dr. 
Reid had done a service by exploding the old doctrine 
of 'ideas'; he brought mind into contact with immediate 
things, but much more is left for us to do ; the same office 
has to be performed for 'mind' — that is, mind when 



go FAMOUS SCOTS 

we regard it as something which connects us with the 
universe, or something which can be looked at and 
examined, as we might look at or examine a thing out- 
side ourselves, and not as that which is necessary to any 
such examination. ' Is it not enough for a man that he is 
himself} There can be no dispute about that. / am ; 
what more would I have ? What more would I be ? Why 
would I be mind} I am myself therefore let it perish/ 

What, then, makes a man what he is ? It is the fact of 
consciousness, the fact which marks him off from all 
other things with a deep line of separation. It is this 
and this alone, Ferrier says, this 'human phenomenon/ 
and not its objects, passions, or emotions, which leads us 
into pastures fresh and far separated from the dreary 
round which the old metaphysicians followed. The same 
discovery, of course, is always being made, though to 
Ferrier it was new ; we are always straying into devious 
ways, ways that lead us into grey regions of abstraction, 
and we always want to be called back to the concrete 
and the real, to the freshness and the brightness of life 
as it is and lives. 

Ferrier from this time onwards, from his youth until 
his death, kept one definite aim in view : the object of 
his life was to insist with all his might that our interests 
must be concentrated on man as he is as man, and not 
on a mere sum-total of passions and sensations by which 
the human being is affected. The consciousness of a 
state of mind is very different from that state of mind 
itself, and the two must be kept absolutely distinct. 
' Let mind have the things which are mind's, and man the 
things which are man's.' We should, Ferrier says, fling 
'mind' and its lumber overboard, busy ourselves with 
the man and his facts. Man's passions and sensations 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 91 

may be referred to ' mind ' indeed, but he cannot lay his 
hands upon the fact of consciousness. That fact cannot 
be conceived of as vested in the object called the ' human 
mind,' an object being something really or ideally 
different from ourselves. In speaking of 'my mind/ 
mind may be what it chooses, but the consciousness is in 
the ego; and mind is really destitute of consciousness, 
otherwise the ego would necessarily be present in it. The 
dilemma is as follows : ' Unless the philosophers of mind 
attribute consciousness to mind, they leave out of view 
the most important phenomena of man ; and if they 
attribute consciousness to mind, they annihilate the 
object of their research, in so far as the whole extent of 
this fact is concerned.' 

Since Ferrier's time this point has been worked out 
very fully, and by none more successfully than by an 
English philosopher, Professor T. H. Green of Oxford, 
in his Introduction to the works of Hume. But when 
Ferrier wrote, his ideas were new ; in England at least he 
was breaking up ground hitherto untouched, and there- 
fore the debt of gratitude we owe him is not small, 
especially when we consider the forces against which he 
warred. ' Common-sense/ the solution offered for all 
philosophic difficulties, is really the problem of philosophy, 
and to speak of the 'philosophy of common-sense' is 
simply to confuse the problem w T ith its solution. 
Common-sense, or rather what is given by its means, 
has simply to be construed into intelligible forms : in 
itself it makes no attempt to solve the difficulties that 
present themselves, and it is folly to suggest its doing so. 
When a man speaks of my sensations or my states of 
mind, he means something of which he — as conscious- 
ness — is independent, and which can be made an object 



92 FAMOUS SCOTS 

to him. Were it not so, of course he could not possibly 
arrive at freedom, but would merely be the helpless child 
of destiny ; and, as Ferrier points out, were conscious- 
ness and sensation one, consciousness would not have the 
power, undoubtedly possessed by it, of 'recovering the 
balance ' that it loses on experiencing pain or passion ; 
the return of consciousness, as he puts it, ' lowers the 
temperature' of the sensation or the passion, and the 
man regains the personality that for the time had almost 
vanished. A man, he tells us, can hardly even be said 
to be the ' victim ' of his mind, and irresponsible — i.e., 
man stands aloof from the modifications which may visit 
him, therefore we should study him as he is, and not 
merely these c states of mind' common to him and to 
animals alike. And consciousness must be active, exer- 
cising itself upon those states, and thereby realising 
human freedom. 

Philosophy, then, is the gospel of freedom as con- 
trasted with the bondage of the physical kingdom. But 
we are in subjection at the first, and all our lifetime a 
constant fight is being carried on. Philosophy paints its 
grey in grey, another great philosopher has told us, only 
when the freshness and life of youth has gone : the 
reconciliation is in the ideal, not the actual world. And 
so with Ferrier : ' The flowers of thy happiness/ says 
he, * are withered. They could not last \ they gilded 
but for a day the opening portals of life. But in their 
place I will give thee freedom's flowers. To act according 
to thy inclination may be enjoyment ; but know that to 
act agaifist it is liberty, and thou only actest thus because 
thou art really free.' Great and weighty words, which 
might be pondered by many more than those to whom 
they were originally addressed. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 93 

Having established his fundamental principles, Ferrier 
goes on to trace the birth of self-consciousness in the 
child — the knowledge of itself as ' I,' which means the 
knowledge of good and evil — the moral birth. Percep- 
tion, again, is a synthesis of sensation and consciousness — 
the realisation of self in conjunction with the sensation 
experienced : it is, of course, peculiar to man. Things 
can only take effect on ' me ' when there is a ' me ' to take 
effect upon, and not at birth, or before I come to con- 
sciousness. Consciousness is the very essence and origin 
of the ego; without consciousness no man would be ' I.' 
It is our refusal to be acted on by outside impressions 
that constitutes our personality and perception of them ; 
our communication with the universe is the communica- 
tion of ^//-communication. And the ego is not some- 
thing which comes into the world ready-made ; it is a 
living activity which is never passive, for were it passive, 
it would be annihilated ; in submitting to the action of 
causality its life would be gone. Our destiny is to free 
ourselves from the bonds of nature, from that ' blessed 
state of primeval innocence,' the blessedness, after all, of 
bondage. A man cannot be until he acts, for his Being 
arises out of his actions : consciousness being an act, our 
proper existence is the consequence of that act. His 
natural condition for others, and before he comes to exist- 
ence, Ferrier says, is given, while his existence for himself 
is made by his thinking himself. It is only in the latter 
case that he can attain to Liberty, instead of remaining 
bound by the bonds imposed upon him by Necessity. 
The three great moments of humanity are : first, the natural 
or given man in enslaved Being ; second, the conscious 
man in action working into freedom against passion; third, 
the ' I ' : man as free, that is, real personal Being. 



94 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Philosophy has thus a great future before her. Instead 
of being a mere dead theory as heretofore, she becomes 
renovated into a new life when she gets her proper 
place; she is separated from her supposed connection 
with the physical world, and is recognised as conscious- 
ness. When this is so, she loses her merely theoretic 
aspect, and is identified with the living practical interests 
of mankind. The dead symbols become living realities, 
the dead twigs are clothed with verdure. ' Know thyself, 
and in knowing thyself thou shalt see that this self is not 
thy true self; but, in the very act of knowing this, thou 
shalt at once displace this false self, and establish thy 
true self in its room/ And Ferrier goes on to trace the 
bearings of his theories in the moral and intellectual 
world. He finds in morality something more than a 
refined self-love ; he finds the dawning will endeavouring 
to assert itself, to break free from the trammels imposed 
upon it by nature. Freedom, the great end of man, is 
contravened by the passive conditions of his nature ; 
these are therefore wrong, and every act of resistance 
tends to the accomplishment of the one important end, 
which is to procure his liberty. 

This essay, or series of essays, gives the keynote to 
Ferrier's thought and writings, therefore it seemed worth 
while to consider its argument in detail. The complete- 
ness of the break with the old philosophy is manifest. 
The * scientific ' methods applied to every region of 
knowledge were then in universal use, and no little 
courage was required to challenge their pretensions as 
they were challenged by Ferrier. But in courage, as we 
know, Ferrier was never lacking. His mind once made 
up, he had no fear in making his opinions known. He 
considered that the Scottish Philosophy had become 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 95 

something very like materialism in the hands of Brown 
and others, and he believed that the whole point of view 
must be changed if a really spiritual philosophy was to 
take its place. There may be traces of the impetuosity 
.of youth in this attack: much working out was un- 
doubtedly required before it could be said that a system 
had been established. But all the same this essay is a 
brilliant piece of philosophic writing — instinct with life 
and enthusiasm — one which must have made its readers 
feel that the dry bones of a dead system had wakened 
into life, and that what they had imagined an abstract 
and dismal science had become instinct with living, 
practical interest — something to be * lived ' as well as 
studied. 

The Institutes of Metaphysics — the work by which 
Terrier's name will descend to posterity — is a development 
of the Philosophy of Consciousness ; but it is more care- 
fully reasoned out and systematised — the result of many 
years of thoughtful labour. For several years before the 
work was published (in 1854) the propositions which are 
contained in it were developed in the course of Ferrier's 
regular lectures. The Institutes^ or Theory of Knowing 
and Being, commences with a definition of philosophy as 
a ' body of reasoned truth/ and states that though there 
were plenty of dissertations on the subject in existence, 
there was no philosophy itself — no scheme of demon- 
strated truth ; and this, and not simply a ' contribution ' 
to philosophy was what was now required, and what the 
writer proposed to give. The divisions into which he 
separates Philosophy are : first, the Epistemology, or 
theory of knowledge ; secondly, the Agnoiology, or theory 
of ignorance; and thirdly, the Ontology, or theory of 
being. The fundamental question is, ' What is the one 



96 FAMOUS SCOTS 

feature which is identical, invariable, and essential in all 
the varieties of our knowledge ? ' 

The first condition of knowledge is that we should 
know ourselves, and reason gives certainty to this pro- 
position which is not capable of demonstration, owing to 
its being itself the starting-point ; the counter-proposition, 
asserting the separate subject and object of knowledge, 
and the mutual presence of the two without intelligence's 
being necessarily cognisant of itself, represents general 
opinion, and the ordinary view of popular psychology. 
Knowledge, then, Ferrier goes on, always has the self as 
an essential part of it ; it is knowledge-in-union-with- 
whatever-it-apprehends. The objective part of the object 
of knowledge, though distinguishable, is not really separ- 
able from the subjective or ego \ both constitute the unit 
of knowledge — an utterance thoroughly Hegelian in its 
character, however Ferrier may disclaim a connection 
with Hegel's system. In space they may be separated, 
but not in cognition, and this idealism does not for one 
moment deny the existence of ' external ' things, but only 
says they can have no meaning if out of relation to those 
which are ' internal ' ; as Hegel might have put it, they 
could be known as separable by means of ' abstraction ' 
only. From this point we are led on to the next state- 
ment, and a most important statement it is, that matter 
per se is of necessity absolutely unknowable ; or to what 
Ferrier calls the Theory of Ignorance. Whether or not 
this theory can make good the title to originality which 
its author claims for it, there is no doubt that its state- 
ment in clear language, such as no one can fail to under- 
stand, marks an important era in English speculation. 
There are, Ferrier says, two sorts of so-called ignorance : 
one of these is incidental to some minds, but not to all 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 97 

— an ignorance of defect, he puts it — just as we might 
be said to be ignorant of a language we had never 
learned. But the other ignorance (not, properly speak- 
ing, ignorance at all) is incident to all intelligence by its 
very nature, and is no defect or imperfection. The law 
of ignorance hence is that ' we can be ignorant only of 
what can be known/ or 'the knowable is alone the 
ignorable.' The bearing of this important point is seen 
at once when we turn back to the theory of knowing. 
Knowledge is something of which the subject cannot 
shake himself free ; ' I ' must always, in whatever I appre- 
hend, apprehend 'me.' We don't apprehend 'things/ 
that is, but what is apprehended is ' me-apprehending- 
things.' Things - plus - me is the only knowable, and 
consequently the only ' ignorable.' 

This brings us a great way towards the Absolute Idealism 
associated mainly with the name of Hegel — towards the 
Knowledge or ' Experience ' (a word which Ferrier after- 
wards himself makes use of) which shall cease to be a 
'theory,' being recognised as comprehending within itself 
all Reality — as recognising no distinction between object 
and subject, excepting when they are regarded as two 
poles both equally essential, and separated only when 
looked at in abstraction. If Ferrier's 'theory of know- 
ledge' did not proceed so far, he at least made the 
discovery that the subjective idealism of Kant was as 
unsatisfactory as the relativity of Hamilton, and as 
certainly tending to agnosticism. Kant's ' thing-in-itself y 
is not that of which we are ignorant, or a hidden reality 
which can be known by faith. It is that which 
cannot possibly be known — and, in other words, a con- 
tradiction or nonsense. Now, Ferrier says, we arrive at 
the true Idealism — the triumph of philosophy. If it is 
7 



98 FAMOUS SCOTS " 

said to reduce all things to the phenomena of conscious- 
ness, it does the same to every nothing. What falls out 
of consciousness becomes incogitable ; it lapses, not into 
nothing, but into what is contradictory. The material 
universe per se, and all its qualities per se, are not only 
absolutely unknowable, but absolutely unthinkable. We 
do indeed know substance, but only as object plus 
subject — as matter mecum or in cognition as thought 
together with the self. 

It may be true that we cannot claim for Ferrier com- 
plete originality in his thinking \ work on very similar lines 
was being carried on elsewhere. It is not difficult to trace 
throughout his writings the mode of his development. 
The earlier works are evidently influenced by Fichte and 
his school, since the personal ego and individual freedom 
figure as the principal conceptions in our knowledge; 
and even while the Scottish school of psychologists is 
being combated, the influence of Hamilton is very mani- 
fest. But as time goes on, Ferrier's ideas become more 
concrete; the theory of consciousness becomes more 
absolute in its conception ; the human or individual 
element is less conspicuous as the universal element is 
more, which signifies that gradually he approaches closer 
to the standpoint of the later German thinkers by a 
careful study of their works, though for the most part it 
is Reid and Hamilton his criticisms have in view, and 
not the corresponding work of Kant. 

Still, we should say that Ferrier's attitude represented 
another phase in the same struggle against abstraction and 
towards unity in knowledge, rather than being a simple 
outcome of the German influence in Scotland. This 
last assumption he at least repudiated with energy, and 
boldly claimed to have developed and completed his 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 99 

system for himself. He claimed to have worked on 
national lines ; to have started from the philosophy of 
his country as it was currently accepted, and to have 
little difficulty in proving from itself its absolute inade- 
quacy. He felt that in his doctrine of the reality of 
knowledge he had found the means of solving problems 
hitherto dark and obscure, and he used his instruments 
bravely, and on the whole successfully. 

The faith-philosophy which professed to know reality 
through the senses, when these senses were a part of the 
external universe, or signified taking for granted the 
matter in dispute, was utterly repugnant to Ferrier. 
The Unknowable of Sir William Hamilton was incon- 
ceivable to him, and he ever kept this theory and its 
errors in his mind, while developing a system of his own. 
It is better that a philosophic system should grow up 
thus, instead of coming to us from without in language 
hard to understand because of foreign idioms and un- 
wonted modes of expression. To be of use, a philo- 
sophy should speak the language of the people : until it 
becomes identified with ordinary ways of thinking, its 
influence is never really great ; and the Idealism of 
Germany has in this country always suffered from being 
intelligible only to the few. Therefore we hold all 
credit due to Ferrier for consistently refusing to adopt 
the phraseology of a foreign country, and setting himself, 
heart and soul, to find expression for his thoughts in the 
language of his birth. 

Ferrier introduces his Lectures on Greek Philosophy \ 
the last subject on which he undertook to write, in a 
manner which reminds us of Hegel's remarkable Intro- 
duction to his History of Philosophy ; he begins, like 
Hegel, by pointing out that the study of philosophy is just 



ioo FAMOUS SCOTS * 

the study of our own reason in its development, but 
that what is worked out in our minds hurriedly and 
within contracted limits, is in philosophy evolved at 
leisure, and seen in its just proportions : the historian 
of philosophy has not merely to record the existence of 
dead systems of thought that are past and gone, but the 
living products of his own, full of present, vital interest, 
and there is nothing arbitrary or capricious in such a 
history : all is reasoned thought as it manifests and 
reveals itself. 

Philosophy, Ferrier defines, by calling it the pursuit 
of Truth — not relative Truth, but absolute, what neces- 
sarily exists for all minds alike ; and man's faculties 
(contrary to what is generally supposed) are competent 
to attain to it, provided only that they have something 
in common with all other minds, i.e., are partakers in a 
universal intelligence. He works this out in his Intro- 
duction in an extremely interesting way, showing, as he 
does, how in all intelligence there must be a universal, 
a unity ; that the very essence of religion, for example, 
rests on the unity which constitutes the bond between 
God and man, and that when this is denied, religion is 
made impossible. What then, we may ask, is the Truth 
that has to be pursued ? 

It is that which is the real, the object of philosophy — 
the real which exists for all intelligence. The historian 
of philosophy must show that philosophy in its history 
corresponds with this definition, if the definition be a 
true one. 

The lectures begin with Thales and the followers of 
the Ionic school, and Ferrier points out how, in spite of 
the material elements which are taken as a basis, their 
systems are philosophic, in so far as they aim at the 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 101 

establishment of a universal in all things, and carry with 
them the belief that this universal is the ultimately real ; 
and this gives them an interest which from their sensuous 
forms we could hardly have expected to find. But it was 
Heraclitus , doctrine of Becoming that was most con- 
genial to Ferrier, as it was to his great predecessor 
Hegel. Being and Not-Being, the unity of contraries as 
essential sides of Truth, in such conceptions as these 
Ferrier believes we come nearer to the truth of the 
universe than in the current views of philosophy, in 
which the unity of contrary determinations in one sub- 
ject is regarded as impossible. Apart, either side is in- 
comprehensible, and hence Mr. Mansel and Sir William 
Hamilton argue the impotence of human reason ; but if, 
as Ferrier believes, they are shown to be but moments 
or essential factors in conception, the antagonism will be 
proved unreal — it will be an antagonism proper to the 
very life and essence of reason. 

Possibly in his account of the early Greek philosophers 
Ferrier may have done what many historians of philo- 
sophy have done before him, he may have read into the 
systems which he has been describing much more than 
he was entitled so to read. He may, when he is talking 
of the Eleatics of Heraclitus, and even of Socrates and 
Plato, have had before his mind the special battle which 
he had chosen to fight — the battle against sensationalism 
in Scotland, against materialism in the form in which he 
found it — rather than fairly to set before his readers an 
exact and accurate account of the teaching of the par- 
ticular philosopher of whom he writes. But has it ever 
been otherwise in any history of thought that was ever 
written, excepting perhaps in some dryasdust compendium 
which none excepting those weighed down with dread 



to2 FAMOUS SCOTS "* 

of examination questions, care to peruse? Thought 
reads itself from itself, and if it sometimes reads the 
present into the past, and thinks to see it there, is there 
matter for surprise, or is it so very far wrong ? If it tells 
us something of the secrets it itself conceals, it is surely 
telling us after all much of those that are gone. 

For Plato, Ferrier naturally had a very great affinity ; 
he deals with him at length, and evidently had made a 
special and careful study of his writings. But the same 
method is applied by him to Plato as was before applied 
to the other Greek philosophers. * It is not so much 
by reading Plato as by studying our own minds that we 
can find out what ideas are, and perceive the significance 
of the theory which expounds them. It is only by veri- 
fying in our own consciousness the discoveries of antece- 
dent philosophers that we can hope rightly to understand 
their doctrines or appreciate the value and importance 
of their speculations.' And so Ferrier proceeds to prove 
the necessity for the existence of ' ideas ' — of universals 
— as the absolute truth and groundwork of whatever is. 
No intelligence can be intelligent excepting by their light, 
and they are the necessary laws or principles on which 
all Being and Knowing are dependent. ' All philosophy,' 
he says of Plato, ' speculative and practical, has been 
foreshadowed by his prophetic intelligence ; often dimly, 
but always so attractively as to whet the curiosity and 
stimulate the ardour of those who have chosen him as a 
guide.' And it was as such that Ferrier marked him 
out and chose him as his own. With Aristotle he had 
probably less in common, and his treatment both of him 
and of the Stoics, Epicureans, and Neo-Platonists, with 
which the history ends, is less sympathetic in its tone and 
understanding in its style. But these lectures as a whole, 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 103 

though never put together for printing as a book, must 
always be of interest to the student of philosophy. 

A philosophic article, entitled Berkeley a?id Idealism, 
and published in June of 1842, was designed to meet the 
attack of Mr. Samuel Bailey, who had written a Review 
of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, criticising the soundness 
of his views. Mr. Bailey replied, and Ferrier a year 
later published an article on that reply. Ferrier rightly 
appreciates the very important place which ought to be 
allowed to Berkeley as a factor in the development of 
philosophic truth — a place which has only been properly 
understood in later years. He saw the part he had 
played in bringing the real significance of Absolute 
Idealism into view, and deprecated the representation 
of his system made by David Hume, or the popular idea 
that Berkeley denied all reality to matter. What he did 
deny was the reality which is supposed to lie beyond 
experience, and his criticism in this regard was invalu- 
able as a basis for a future system. In his own words, 
he did not wish to change things into ideas, but ideas 
into things : matter could not exist independently of 
mind. But yet Ferrier is perfectly aware that Berkeley 
did not entirely grasp the absolute standpoint that the 
thing is the appearance, and the appearance is the thing. 
Regarded merely as a literary production, this article is 
entitled to rank with the classics of philosophic writings 
both as regards the beauty of its style and its logical 
development. Ferrier does not often touch directly on 
questions of religion or theology, but there is an interest- 
ing passage in this essay which shows his views regarding 
the question of immortality. He is talking of the impos- 
sibility of our ever conceiving to ourselves the idea of 
our annihilation. Such an idea could not be rationally 



io4 FAMOUS SCOTS 

articulated. We appear, indeed, to be able to realise it, 
but we only think we think it : real thought of death in 
this sense would involve our being already dead; but 
in thought we are and must be immortal. 'We have 
nothing to wait for ; eternity is even now within us, and 
time, with all its vexing troubles, is no more/ 

It was something absolute and enduring for which 
Ferrier was ever on the search. Those of his Intro- 
ductory Lectures which are preserved bear out this 
statement, if nothing else were left to do so. Philosophy, 
thought, is more than systems : ' As long as man 
thinks, the light must burn/ Could he but teach the 
young men who gathered round him day by day to 
think, he cared little as to what so-called ' system' 
they adopted. He put his arguments clearly before 
them, but they were free to criticise as they would. 
And perhaps it was because they realised that the Truth 
was more to him than personal fame that their affection 
for him was so great. He always kept before him, too, 
that in teaching any science the mental discipline which 
it involves must not be overlooked. The practical 
rule of disciplining the mind should run side by side 
with the theoretical instruction, which might soon be 
forgotten; the great effort of a teacher should be in 
the best and highest sense to educate his students. 
That is, he has not only to instil their minds with 
multifarious learning, but to make their thinking system- 
atic. 

And philosophy must, he tells us, be made interesting 
if it is to be of any use : we must arrive at a c philo- 
sophic consciousness,' and distinguish philosophy from 
mere opinion. It is mind which is the permanent and 
immutable in all change and mutation ; even the Greeks 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 105 

found the idea of permanence in mind while they re- 
garded change as the principle of matter. 

Thus, when the end of the day had come, when the 
lamp grew dim, and the books he loved so much must 
be for the last time shut, Ferrier's teaching was not so 
very different from what it was nearly thirty years be- 
fore. The only real change was that the impetuosity 
of youth had gone ; the man and his system had both 
become matured : the one more tolerant, more careful 
in expression, more considerate of the feelings of his 
opponents ; the other more systematic, more co- 
ordinated, firmer in its grasp. There was much to do 
if the system were to be shown to hold its place in 
every department of life, as an absolute system must : 
much that has not even yet been accomplished. But 
for those who came in contact with him, the man was 
more even than his creed — to them this frail form 
which seemed to be wasting away before their eyes, 
yet never losing the keen interest in work to be accom- 
plished, must have taught a lesson more than systems 
of philosophy dream of. For they could not fail to 
learn that the eternal can be found in history — even in 
history of long centuries ago, as in every other sphere of 
knowledge — and that the search for it supports the 
seeker in his daily life, takes all its bitterness from 
what is hardest, from pain, suffering, and even death. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE COLERIDGE PLAGIARISM — MISCELLANEOUS 
LITERARY WORK 

The story of the so-called Coleridge plagiarism is an 
old one now, but it is one which roused much feeling 
at the time, and likewise one on which there is con- 
siderable division of opinion even in the present day. 
Into this controversy Ferrier plunged by writing a for- 
midable indictment of Coleridge's position in Black- 
wood's Magazine for March of 1840. 

When Ferrier took up the cudgels the matter stood 
thus. In the earlier quarter of the century German 
Philosophy was coming, or rather had already come, 
more or less into vogue in England ; and as the 
German language was not largely read, and yet people 
were vaguely interested, though in what they hardly 
knew, they welcomed an appreciative interpreter of 
that philosophy, and an original writer on similar lines, 
in one whose reputation was esteemed so highly as 
that of Coleridge. Coleridge in this matter, indeed, 
occupied a position which was unique ; for the treasures 
of German poetry and prose had not as yet been fully 
opened up, and he was held to possess the means of 
doing this in a quite exceptional degree. The works 
of Schiller, Goethe, and the other poets came to the 
world — and to Coleridge with the rest — as a sort of 

106 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 107 

revelation. But the poet in his own mind was nothing 
if not a philosopher — a kind of seer amongst men, 
speculating, somewhat vaguely it might be, on matters 
of transcendental import — and in Schelling he thought 
he had discovered a kindred spirit; in his writings he 
believed he had found the Idealism for which he had 
so long been seeking in Bohme, Fox, and the other 
mystics — a creed which, though pantheistic in its 
essence, yet fulfilled the condition of being both orthodox 
and Trinitarian in its form. This, for many reasons, was 
a creed presenting many attractions to the younger men 
of the day, especially when set forth with a certain 
literary flavour. We have Carlyle's immortal picture of 
how it influenced John Sterling and his friends. 

Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, in which the prin- 
cipal so-called Schelling plagiarisms are contained, was 
published in 1817, but it was not for a considerable 
time after that that the plagiarisms were discovered, or 
at least taken notice of. The first serious indictment 
came from no less an authority than De Quincey, whose 
interest in philosophical matters was as great as Cole- 
ridge's, and who published his views in an appreciative but 
gossipy article in Taifs Magazine of September 1834. 
To commence with, he took up the question of the 
'Hymn to Chamouni ' ; but since, in this matter, 
Coleridge afterwards admitted his indebtedness to a 
German poetess, Frederica Brun, it does not seem an 
important one. Nor, indeed, does De Quincey pretend 
to take exception to certain expressions in Coleridge's 
' France ' which are evidently borrowed from Milton, 
or to regard them as indicating more than a peculiar 
omission of quotation marks. But the really 
serious matter, one for which De Quincey cannot 



io8 FAMOUS SCOTS ■* 

by any means account, is that in the Biographia 
Literaria there occurs a dissertation on the doctrine of 
Knowing and Being which is an exact translation from 
an essay written by Schelling. De Quincey cannot 
indeed explain away the mystery, but he makes the 
best of it, pleading excuses such as we often hear 
adduced in cases of ' kleptomania ' when they occur 
amongst the well-to-do, or so-called higher classes — e.g., 
the evident fact that there was no necessity so to steal, 
no motive for stealing, even though the theft had evi- 
dently been committed. Still, though the defence 
may be ingenious, and though we may go so far as to 
acknowledge that Coleridge had sufficient originality 
of mind to weave out theories of his own without 
borrowing from others, it must be confessed that under 
the aggravated circumstances the argument falls some- 
what flat; and this was the impression made on 
many minds even at the time. The ball once set 
rolling, the dispute went on, and the next important 
incident was an article by Julius Hare in the British 
Magazine of January 1835. This is a hot defence of 
the so-called ' Christian ' philosopher, who is said to 
be influencing the best and most promising young men 
of the day, as against the assault of the * English 
Opium-Eater' — 'that ill-boding alias of evil record.' 
As to De Quincey's somewhat unkind but entertaining 
stories, there is some reason in Hare's objections, 
seeing that they were told of one to whom the writer 
owned himself indebted. But when Hare tackles the 
plagiarisms themselves, and endeavours to defend them, 
his task is harder. Coleridge had indeed stated that 
his ideas were thought out and matured before he had 
seen a page of Schelling ; but at the same time, in an 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 109 

earlier portion of his work, he made a somewhat 
ambiguous reference to his indebtedness to the German 
philosopher, and deprecated his being accused of in- 
tentioned plagiarism from his writings. Of course it 
may be said that a thief does not draw attention to 
the goods from which he has stolen, but yet even 
Hare acknowledges that it is hard to understand how 
half a dozen pages (we now know that it really ex- 
ceeded thirty) should have been bodily transferred 
from one work to another, and suggests that the most 
probable solution is that Coleridge had a practice of 
keeping notebooks for his thoughts, mingled with 
extracts from what he had been reading at the time, 
and that he thus became confused between the two. 

At this point Ferrier steps in and takes the whole 
matter under review — a matter which he looked upon 
as serious (perhaps more serious than we should now 
consider it) from a national as well as an individual 
point of view. He held that the reputation of his 
country was at stake, as well as that of a single philo- 
sophic thinker, and that neither De Quincey nor Hare 
had gone into the matter with sufficient care or know- 
ledge, or ascertained how large it really was. It was 
undoubtedly the case that Coleridge's reputation in 
philosophic matters — and in these days that reputation 
was not small — was derived from what he had pur- 
loined from the writings of a German youth, and what- 
ever the poet's claim on our regard on other scores 
may be, it was certainly due to Schelling that the debt 
should be acknowledged. As far as the Biographia 
LUcraria is concerned, the facts are plain. Coleridge 
makes certain general acknowledgments of indebted- 
ness to Schelling to begin with. He acknowledges 



no FAMOUS SCOTS - 

that there may be found in his works an identity of 
thought or phrase with Schelling's, and allows him to 
be the founder of the philosophy of nature; but he 
claims at the same time the honour of making that 
philosophy intelligible to his fellow-countrymen, and 
even of thinking it out beforehand. Having said so 
much, there follow pages together — sometimes as many 
as six or eight on end — which are virtually copied 
verbati?ii from Schelling, though with occasional inter- 
polations of the so-called author here and there. 
Ferrier has examined the whole matter most minutely, 
and made a long list of the more flagrant cases of 
copying : thirty-one pages, he points out, are faithfully 
transcribed, partially or wholly, from Schelling's works 
alone, without allowing for what the author admits to 
be translated in part from a ' contemporary writer of 
the Continent.' And Schelling was not the only 
sufferer, nor was it only in the region of metaphysics 
that the thefts were made. The substratum of a whole 
chapter of the Biographia Literaria is, Ferrier dis- 
covered, taken from another author named Maasz, 
and Coleridge's lecture ' On Poesy or Art ' is closely 
copied and largely translated from Schelling's ' Discourse 
upon the Relations in which the Plastic Arts stand to 
Nature.' This was a blow indeed to those who had 
boasted of the profundity of Coleridge's views on art ; 
but his poetry surely remained intact. But no, ' Verses 
exemplifying the Homeric Metre' are found to be — 
unacknowledged — a translation from Schiller; and yet 
worse, because less likely to be discovered, the lines 
written 'To a Cataract' have the same metre, language, 
and thought as certain verses by Count von Stolberg, 
which were shown to Ferrier by a friend. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER in 

The whole matter is a very strange one and not easy to 
explain. Of course the references to Schelling's labours 
in similar lines are there, and may in a sense disarm 
our criticism. But then, unfortunately, there also are 
the statements that the ideas had been matured in 
Coleridge's mind before he had seen a single line of 
Schelling's work, and he clearly gives us to understand 
that he had toiled out the system for himself, and that it 
was the ' offspring of his own spirit.' It is this over- 
much protesting that makes us, like Ferrier, disposed to 
take the darkest view of the affair : anything that can be 
said in Coleridge's defence is found in the manner in 
which it was taken by the one who had most right to feel 
aggrieved. In the life of Jowett, 1 recently published, there 
is an interesting account of Schelling's views on Coleridge, 
taken from a conversation, notes of which were made by 
the late Sir Alexander Grant, Ferrier's son-in-law, when 
still an undergraduate. Jowett, while at Berlin, had, 
it appears, seen Schelling, and talked to him of the 
plagiarisms. He took the matter, Jowett states, good- 
naturedly, thought Coleridge to have been attacked 
unfairly, and even went so far as to assert that he had 
expressed many things better than he could have done 
himself — certainly a very generous acknowledgment. 
Probably the most charitable construction we can put on 
Coleridge's act is that which Jowett himself advances in 
saying that the poet is not to be looked upon or judged 
as an ordinary man would be, seeing that often enough 
he hardly could be said to have been responsible for 
his actions ; while his egotism, which was extreme, 
may have likewise led him — it may be almost uncon- 
sciously — into acts of doubtful honesty. But evidently, 
1 Life of Benjamin Jowett, vol. i. pp. 98 and 145. 



ii2 FAMOUS SCOTS 

in spite of Ferrier's work, Jowett, and possibly even 
Schelling himself, had no idea of the extent to which the 
plagiarisms extended. There would, of course, have 
been comparatively little harm in Coleridge's action had 
he been content to borrow materials which he was about 
to work up in his own way, or to do what his biographer 
Gillman says is done by the ' bee which flies from 
flower to flower in quest of food,' but which ' digests and 
elaborates ' that food^by its native power. Unfortunately, 
the more we read Coleridge's philosophic writings, the 
more we feel constrained to agree with Ferrier that the 
matter is not digested as Gillman suggests, but taken 
possession of in its ready-made condition. The parts 
which he adds do not assist in throwing light on what 
precedes, but are evidently padding of a somewhat 
commonplace and superficial kind. We can only say, 
like Jowett, that the manner of his life may have injured 
Coleridge's moral sense, and that his desire to pose as a 
philosopher who should yet be a so-called ' Christian ' 
may have led him to encroach upon the spheres of others, 
instead of keeping to those in which he could hold his 
own unchallenged. 

A labour of love with Ferrier, on very different lines 
than the above, was to bring out in five volumes the 
works of his father-in-law, John Wilson, * Christopher 
North,' including the Nodes Ambrosiance^ and his 
Essays and Papers contributed to Blackwood. This was 
published in 1856, but must, of course, have meant a 
considerable amount of work to the editor for some 
time previously. One of the most interesting parts of 
the work is Ferrier's preface to the famous 'Chaldee 
Manuscript,' in vol. iv. The story of the ' Chaldee MS.' is 
now a matter of history, fully recorded in the recently 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 113 

published records of the famous house of Blackwood. 
In 1817 the Whigs ruled in matters literary, mainly 
through the instrumentality of the Edinburgh Review, 
then in its heyday of fame. A reaction, however, set in, 
and the change was inaugurated by the publication of 
the so-called 'Chaldee MS.,' a wild extravaganza, ox j etc 
d'esprit, hitting off the foibles of Whiggism, under the 
guise of an allegory describing the origin and rise of 
Blackwood's Magazine, the rival which had risen up in 
opposition to the Review, and the discomfiture of another 
journal carried on under the auspices of Constable. It 
was in the seventh number of Blackwood that the satire 
appeared — that is, the first number of Blackwood's Edi?i- 
burgh Magazine as distinguished from the Edinburgh 
Monthly Magazine, published from Blackwood's office to 
begin with, but on comparatively mild and inoffensive 
lines. One may imagine the effect of this Tory out- 
burst on the society of Edinburgh. All the literati of 
the town were involved : Sir Walter Scott himself, 
Mackenzie, Sir David Brewster, Sir William Hamilton, 
Professor Jamieson, Tytler, Playfair, and many others, 
some of whom emerged but seldom from the retirement 
of private life. Nowadays it would be difficult, if not 
impossible, to identify the different characters, were it 
not for the assistance of Professor Ferrier's marginal 
notes ; but in those days they were no doubt recognisable 
enough. Of course the magazine went like wildfire ; 
but the ludicrous description in semi-biblical language 
of individuals with absurd allegorical appendages, con- 
stituted, as Ferrier acknowledges, an offence against 
propriety which could not be defended, even though no 
real malevolence might be signified. Whether Ferrier 
was justified in republishing the Nodes, in so far as 



ti4 FAMOUS SCOTS - 

they could be identified with Wilson, has been disputed ; 
but, as the publisher, Major Blackwood, points out, the 
time was past for anyone to be hurt by the personalities 
which they contained, and the only harm the re- 
publication could inflict was upon the Nodes them- 
selves. The conception of the ' Chaldee Manuscript,' he 
tells us, was in the first part due to Hogg ; and Wilson 
and Lockhart were held responsible for the last. There 
is a tradition, too, though Ferrier does not mention it, 
that Hamilton was one of the party in Mr. Wilson's 
house (53 Queen Street) where the skit was said to have 
been concocted, and that he even contributed to it a 
verse. This may have been the case, as Wilson and 
Lockhart were his intimate friends ; but it seems strange 
to think of so thoroughgoing a Whig being found mixed 
up in such a plot, and with such companions. 

Though it is easy to understand that Ferrier felt the 
editing of his father-in-law and uncle's work was a duty 
which it was incumbent upon him to perform, one cannot 
help surmising that it may have been a less congenial 
task to him than many others. There was little in 
common between the two men, both distinguished in 
their way, and Wilson's humour and poetic fancy, how- 
ever bright and vivid, was not of the sort that would 
appeal most to Ferrier. A few years before his death 
Ferrier gave up the project he had in view of writing 
Wilson's life, partly in despair of setting forth his talents 
as he felt they should be set forth, and partly from the 
lack of material to work from. He says, in a letter 
written at the time, £ It would do no good to talk in 
general terms of his wonderful powers, of his genius 
being greater (as in some sense it was) than that of any of 
his contemporaries — greater, too, than any of his publica- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 115 

tions show. The public would require other evidences 
of this beyond one's mere word — something might have 
been done had some of us Boswellized him judiciously, 
but this having been omitted, I do not see how it is 
possible to do him justice/ The book was eventually 
undertaken, and successfully accomplished, by Wilson's 
daughter, Mrs. Gordon. 

We have spoken of Ferrier's interest in German litera- 
ture ; so early as 1839 he published a translation of 
Pietro (FAbano by Ludwig Tieck, one of the inner circle 
of the so-called Romantic School to which the Schlegels 
and Novalis also belonged — the school which opposed 
itself to the eighteenth-century enlightenment, making its 
cry the return to nature, and demanding with Fichte that 
a work of art should be a ' free product of the inner 
consciousn. rimen of Ferrier's translating 

powers is given in a rendering from Deinhardstein's Bild 
x love story in which Salvator Rosa figures. 
This appeared in B lackwood of September 1841, and an 
extract from it is published in the Remains. 

But one of the earliest and most remarkable of Ferrier's 
literary criticisms in Blackwood's Magazine was an anony- 
mous article on the various translations of Goethe's Faust 
published in 1840. We have seen that Ferrier had made 
a special study of the writings of Schiller and Goethe, and 
that his work had been much appreciated both by 
Lytton and De Quincey. In this article the writer takes 
seven different renderings of the drama, carefully analyses 
them, points out their deficiencies, and even adventures 
on the difficult task, for a critic, of himself translating one 
or two pages. Now that German is so widely read in 
England, we are all too well aware of the insufficiency of 
any translation of Faust to regard even the best in any 



n6 FAMOUS SCOTS * 

other light than as a makeshift. But then things were 
different, and it was possible that wrong impressions of 
the original might be conveyed by inadequate translations. 
Ferrier's point was that Goethe, while writing in rhyme 
and in exquisitely poetical language, managed at the 
same time to find words such as might really be used by 
ordinary mortals; but the translators, in endeavouring 
rightly enough to keep to the rhyming form, entirely fail 
in their endeavour after the same end. He considers 
that though in prose we may deviate from the ordinary 
proprieties of language, we may not do so in rhyming 
poetry ; for though the poet has to describe the thought 
and passion of real men in the language of real life, his 
dialect must at the same time be taken out of the 
category of ordinary discourse because of the use of 
rhyme; and he is therefore called upon as far as 
possible to remove this bar, and reconcile us to the 
peculiarity of his style by the simplicity of his language ; 
otherwise all illusion will be at an end. Rhymes brought 
together by force can succeed in giving us no pleasure ; 
the writer should possess the power of mastering his 
material and compelling it to serve his ends. 

Ferrier's speculative instincts naturally led him to 
discuss the often-discussed motive of the play. Is it so, 
as Coleridge says, that the love of knowledge for itself 
could not bring about the evil consequences depicted in 
the character of Faust, but only the love of knowledge 
for some base purpose ? Ferrier replies, No, the love of 
knowledge as an end in itself would people the world 
with Fausts. * Such a love of knowledge exercises itself 
in speculation merely, and not in action; and if the 
experiences of purely speculative men were gathered, we 
think that most of them would be found to confess, 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 117 

bitterly confess, that indulgence in an abstract reflective 
thinking (whatever effect it may have ultimately upon 
their nobler genius, supposing them to have one) in the 
meantime absolutely kills, or appears to kill, all the minor 
faculties of the soul — all the lesser genial powers, upon 
the exercise of which the greater part of human happi- 
ness depends. They would own, not without remorse, 
that pure speculation — that is, knowledge pursued for 
itself alone — has often been tasted by them to be, as 
Coleridge elsewhere says, 'the bitterest and rottenest 
part of the core of the fruit of the forbidden tree.' This 
seems a strange confession for a thinker reputed so 
abstract as Ferrier, but of course the truth of what he 
says is evident. Knowledge regarded as an end in itself 
might have brought Faust into his troubles, it is true, and 
he might likewise have found himself ready to rush into 
what he conceives to be the opposite extreme; but a 
greater philosopher than Ferrier has said that though 
' knowledge brought about the Fall, it also contains 
the principle of Redemption,' and we take this to 
signify that we must look at knowledge as a neces- 
sary element in the culture and education of an 
individual or a people, which, though it carries trouble 
in its wake, does not leave us in our distress, but brings 
along with it the principle of healing, or is the ' healer of 
itself/ 

Soon after the above, Ferrier contributes to the same 
journal an article entitled ' The Tittle-Tattle of a Philo- 
sopher/ or an account of the ' Journey through Life ' of 
Professor Krug of Leipzig. Krug appears to have been 
a sort of Admirable Crichton amongst philosophers, to 
whom no subject came amiss, and who was ready to take 
his part in every sort of philosophical discussion. By 



n8 FAMOUS SCOTS * 

Hegel and the idealist school he is somewhat contempt- 
uously referred to as one of that class of writers of whom 
it is said ' lis se sont bathes les flancs pour etre de grands 
hommes? Anyhow, his recollections are at least amusing, 
if not philosophically edifying. 

A review of the poems of Coventry Patmore a few 
years later is a very different production. It carries us 
back to the old days of Blackwood, when calm judgment 
was not so much an object as strength of expression, 
withering criticism, and biting sarcasm. Ferrier no doubt 
believed it would be well for literature to turn back to 
the old days of the knout ; but few, we fancy, will agree 
with him, even if they suffer for so differing by permitting 
certain trashy publications to see the light. Too often, 
unfortunately, the knout, when it is applied, arrives on 
shoulders that are innocent. Of course Ferrier believed 
that the worst prognostications of a quarter of a century 
before were now being realised by the application not 
being persevered in ; but as to this particular piece of 
criticism, whatever our opinion of Patmore's poetic 
powers may be, surely the writer was unreasonably severe ; 
surely the work does not deserve to be dealt with in such 
unmeasured terms of opprobrium. It is refreshing to 
turn to an appreciative, if also somewhat critical review 
of the poems of Elizabeth Barrett, published in the same 
year, 1844, part of which has been republished in the 
Remains. In this article Ferrier urges once more the 
point on which he continually insists — the adoption of a 
direct simplicity of style : one which goes straight to the 
point, or, as he puts it, which is felt to 'get through 
business.' Excepting certain criticism on the score of 
style and phraseology, however, Ferrier is all praise of 
the high degree of poetic merit which the writings re- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 119 

vealed — merit which he must have been amongst the 
first to discover and make known. 

The last of Ferrier's work for the magazine in which 
he had so often written, was a series of articles on the 
New Readings from Shakespeare, published in 1853. 
These articles were in the main a criticism of Mr. Payne 
Collier's ' Notes and Emendations ' to the Text of Shake- 
speare's * Plays ' from early MS. corrections which he had 
discovered in a copy of the folio 1632. Ferrier, who was 
a thorough Shakespeare student, and whose appreciation 
of Shakespeare is often spoken of by those who knew 
him, had no faith in the authenticity of the new readings, 
though he thinks they have a certain interest as matter 
of curiosity. He goes through the plays and the altera- 
tions made in them seriatim, and comes to the conclu- 
sion that in most cases they have little value. In fact, he 
proceeds so far as to say that they have opened his eyes 
to ' a depth of purity and correctness in the received text 
of Shakespeare ' of which he had no suspicion — a satis- 
factory conclusion to the ordinary reader. 

Besides his work for Blackwood, Ferrier was in the 
habit of contributing articles to the Imperial Dictionary 
of Universal Biography on the various philosophers. 
Two of these, the biographies of Schelling and Hegel, are 
printed in the Remains, but besides these he wrote on 
Adam Smith, Swift, Schiller, etc., and occasionally utilised 
the articles in his lectures. 

On yet another line Ferrier wrote a pamphlet in 1848, 
entitled Observations on Church and State, suggested by 
the Duke of Argyll's essay on the Ecclesiastical History 
of Scotland. This pamphlet aims at proving that the 
Assembly of the Church is really, as the Duke argues, 
not merely an ecclesiastical, but a national council, or, 



120 FAMOUS SCOTS * 

as Ferrier terms it, the c second and junior of the Scottish 
Houses of Parliament.' Being therefore amenable to no 
other earthly power, it was justified in opposing the decrees 
of the Court of Session ; though, however, the Free Church 
ministers were right in defending their constitutional 
privileges, Ferrier holds that they were wrong in doing 
so as the 'Church' in opposition to the 'State/ and 
that this brought upon them their discomfiture. They 
should not, in his view, have acknowledged that the 
Church's property could be forfeit to the State, and 
consequently should not have voluntarily resigned their 
livings. The pamphlet shows considerable interest in the 
controversy raging so vehemently at the time. 

In St. Andrews there was no social meeting at which 
Ferrier was not a welcome guest. When popular lectures, 
then coming into vogue, were instituted in the town, 
Ferrier was called upon to deliver one of the series, the 
subject chosen being ' Our Contemporary Poetical Litera- 
ture.' He says in a letter : ' I am in perfect agony in 
quest of something to say about " Our Contemporary 
Poets" in the Town Hall here on Friday. I must pump 
up something, being committed like an ass to that 
subject, but devil a thing will come. I wish Aytoun 
would come over and plead their cause.' However, in 
spite of fears, the lecture appears to have been a success : 
it was an eloquent appeal on behalf of poetry as an 
invaluable educational factor and agent in carrying 
forward the work of human civilisation, and an apprecia- 
tion of the work of Tennyson, Macaulay, Aytoun, and 
Lytton. In the same year, but a few months later, 
Ferrier was asked to deliver the opening address of the 
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. This Institution 
has for long been the means of bringing celebrities from 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 121 

all parts of the country to lecture before an Edinburgh 
audience, and its origin and conception was largely due 
to Professor Wilson, Ferrier's father-in-law, who was in 
the habit of opening the session with an introductory 
address. His health no longer permitting this to be 
done, the directors requested Ferrier to take his place. 
The address was on purely general topics, dealing mainly 
with the objects of the Institution, then somewhat of 
a novelty. He concluded : ' Labour is the lot of man. 
No pleasure can surpass the satisfaction which a man 
feels in the efficient discharge of the active duties of his 
calling. But it is equally true that every professional 
occupation, from the highest to the lowest, requires to be 
counterpoised and alleviated by pursuits of a more liberal 
order than itself. Without these the best faculties of our 
souls must sink down into an ignoble torpor, and human 
intercourse be shorn of its highest enjoyments, and its 
brightest blessings.' This is characteristic of Ferrier's 
view of life. One-sidedness was his particular abhorrence, 
and if he could in any measure impress its evil upon 
those whose daily business was apt to engross their 
attention, to the detriment of the higher spheres of 
thinking, he was glad at least to make the attempt. 



CHAPTER VIII 

PROFESSORIAL LIFE 

The St. Andrews University has the reputation of being 
given to strife, and never being thoroughly at rest unless 
it has at least one law-plea in operation before the Court 
of Session in Edinburgh, or an appeal before the House 
of Lords in London. In a small town, and more 
especially in a "small L T niversity town, there is of course 
unlimited opportunity for discussing every matter of 
interest, and battles are fought and won before our very 
doors — battles often just as interesting as those of the 
great world outside, and more engrossing because in 
them we probably play the part of active participators, 
instead of being simple spectators from outside. Of this 
time Sheriff Smith, however, writes : * Never was the 
University set more social, and less given to strife than 
in Ferrier's day. Grander feats I have often seen else- 
where, but brighter or more intellectual talk, ranging 
from the playful to the profound, never have I heard 
anywhere.' In this respect it contrasts with the more 
self-conscious and less natural social gatherings of the 
neighbouring city of Edinburgh, whose stiffness and 
formality was unknown to the smaller town. The com- 
pany, without passing beyond L T niversity bounds, was 
excellent. There was Tulloch at St. Mary's, still a 
young man at his prime, and a warm friend of Ferrier's 

122 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 123 

in spite of the traditional decree that St. Mary's dealings 
with the other College should be as few as might be ; 
there was Shairp, afterwards Professor of Poetry in 
Oxford, and always a delightful and inspiring companion ; 
in the Chair of Logic there was Professor Spalding, whose 
ill-health alone prevented him from sharing largely in 
the social life ; and he was succeeded by Professor 
Yeitch, afterwards of Glasgow, whose appreciation of 
Ferrier was keen, and with whom Ferrier had so much 
intercourse of a mutually enjoyable sort. Then there was 
Professor Sellar, a staunch friend and true, and likewise 
Sir David Brewster, the veteran man of science, whom 
Scotland delights to honour. When Brewster resigned 
t!ie Principalship of the United College in 1859, Ferrier 
was pressed to become a candidate for the post, and 
Brewster himself promised his support, and urged 
Fender's claims ; but there were difficulties in the way, 
and his place was filled by another follower of science, 
Principal Forbes. 

tudents are now, of course, dispersed abroad 
far and wide. One of their number, Sheriff Campbell 
Smith of Dundee, writes of them as follows: — ' His old 
students are scattered everywhere — through all countries, 
professions, and eli mates. To many of them the world 
of faith and action has become more narrow and less 
ideal than it seemed when they sat listening to his lofty 
and eloquent speculations in the little old classroom 
among earnest young faces that are no longer young, 
and nearly all grown dim to memory ; but to none of 
them can there be any feeling regarding him alien to 
respect and affection, while to many there will remain 
the conviction that he was for them and their experience 
the first impersonation of living literature, whose lectures. 



124 FAMOUS SCOTS * 

set off by his thrilling voice, slight interesting burr, and 
solemn pauses, and holding in solution profound original 
thought and subtle critical suggestions, were a sort of 
revelation, opening up new worlds, and shedding a flood 
of new light upon the old familiar world of thought and 
knowledge in which genius alone could see and disclose 
wonders.' And this sometime student tells how in 
passages from the standard poets undetected meanings 
were discovered, and new light was thrown upon the 
subject of his talk by quotations from the classics, from 
Milton and Byron as well as from his favourite Horace. 
His eloquence, he tells us, might not be so strong and 
overwhelming as that of Chalmers, but it was more fine, 
subtle, and poetical in its affinities, revealing thought 
more splendid and transcendental. ' In person and 
manner Professor Ferrier was the very ideal of a Pro- 
fessor and a gentleman. Nature had made him in the 
body what he strove after in spirit. His features were 
cast in the finest classic mould, and were faultlessly 
perfect, as was also his tall thin person, — from the finely 
formed head, thickly covered with black hair, which the 
last ten years turned into iron-grey, to the noticeably hand- 
some foot. ... A human being less under the influence 
of low or selfish motives could not be conceived in this 
mercenary anti-ideal age. If he made mistakes, they 
were due to his living in an ideal world, and not to 
either malice or guile, both of which were entirely 
foreign to his nature.' ! And yet there was nothing of 
the Puritan about the Professor's nature. There are 
celebrations in St. Andrews in commemoration of a 
certain damsel, Kate Kennedy by name, which are char- 
acterised by demonstrations of a somewhat noisy order. 
* Writings by the Way, by John Campbell Smith, p. 357 seq, 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 125 

Some of the Professors denounced this institution and 
demanded its abolition. But Ferrier had too much 
sense of humour to do this ; he did not rebuke the lads 
for the exuberance of their spirits, but by his calm dignity 
contrived to keep them within due bounds. 

A picture of Ferrier was painted about a year before 
his death by Sir John Watson Gordon, and it may still 
be seen in the University Hall beside the other men of 
learning who have adorned their University. It was 
painted for his friends and former students, but though a 
fairly accurate likeness, it is said not to have conveyed 
to others the keen, intellectual look so characteristic of 
the face. It was the nameless charm — charm of manner 
and personality — that drew Ferrier's students so forcibly 
towards him. As his colleague, Principal Tulloch, said 
in a lecture after his death : ' There was a buoyant and 
graceful charm in all he did — a perfect sympathy, 
cordiality, and frankness which won the hearts of his 
students as of all who sought his intellectual companion- 
ship. Maintaining the dignity of his position with easy 
indifference, he could descend to the most free and 
affectionate intercourse ; make his students as it were 
parties with him in his discussions, and, while guiding 
them with a master hand, awaken at the same time their 
own activities of thought as fellow-workers with himself. 
There was nothing, I am sure, more valuable in his 
teaching than this — nothing for which his students will 
longer remember it with gratitude. No man could be 
more free from the small vanity of making disciples. 
He loved speculation too dearly for itself — he prized too 
highly the sacred right of reason, to wish any man or any 
student merely to adopt his system or repeat his thought. 
Not to manufacture thought for others, but to excite 



126 FAMOUS SCOTS 

thought in others ; to stimulate the powers of inquiry, 
and brace all the higher functions of the intellect, was his 
great aim. He might be comparatively careless, therefore, 
of the small process of drilling, and minute labour of 
correction. These, indeed, he greatly valued in their 
own place. But he felt that his strength lay in a different 
direction — in the intellectual impulse which his own 
thinking, in its life, its zealous and clear open candour, 
was capable of imparting.' 

Ferrier was not, perhaps, naturally endowed with any 
special capacity for business, but the business that fell to 
him as a member of the Senatus Academicus was per- 
formed with the greatest care and zeal. With the move- 
ment for women's University education, which has always 
been to the front in St. Andrews, he was sympathetic, 
although it was not a matter in which he played any 
special part. 'No one,' it was said, 'had clearer per- 
ceptions or a cooler and fairer judgment in any matter 
which seemed to him of importance.' Principal Tulloch 
tells how on one occasion in particular, where the 
interests of the University were at stake, his clear sense 
and vigilance carried it through its troubles. His loyalty 
to St. Andrews at all times was indeed unquestioned. It 
is possible that had he made it his endeavour to devote 
more interest to practical affairs outside the University 
limits, it might have been better for himself. There 
may, perhaps, be truth in the saying that metaphysics is 
apt to have an enervating effect upon the moral senses, 
or at least upon the practical activities, and to take from 
men's usefulness in the ordinary affairs of life ; but one 
can hardly realise Ferrier other than he was, a student 
whose whole interests were devoted to the philosophy he 
had espoused, and who loved to deal with the funda- 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 127 

mental questions that remained beneath all action and 
all thought, rather than with those more concrete ; and 
the former lay in a region purely speculative. Such as 
he was, he never failed to preserve the most perfect order 
in his class, and to do what was required of him with 
praiseworthy accuracy and minute attention to details. 

' Life in his study,' says Principal Tulloch, ' was Pro- 
fessor Ferrier's characteristic life. There have been, I 
daresay, even in our time, harder students than he was ; 
but there could scarcely be anyone who was more 
habitually a student, who lived more amongst books, 
and took more special and constant delight in inter- 
course with them. In his very extensive but choice 
library he knew every book by head-mark, as he would 
say, and could lay his hands upon the desired volume 
at once. It was a great pleasure to him to bring to the 
light from an obscure corner some comparatively un- 
known English speculator of whom the University library 
knew nothing/ 

We are often told how he would be found seated in 
his library clad in a long dressing-gown which clung 
round his tall form, and making him look even taller — a 
typical philosopher, though perhaps handsomer than 
many of his craft. * My father rarely went from home/ 
writes his daughter, ' and when not in the College class- 
room was to be found in his snug, well-stocked, ill- 
bound library, writing or reading, clad in a very becoming 
dark blue dressing-gown. He was no smoker, but carried 
with him a small silver snuff-box.' 

Professor Shairp says that now and then he used to go 
to hear him lecture. ' I never saw anything better than 
his manner towards his students. There was in it ease, 
yet dignity so respectful both to them and to himself 



128 FAMOUS SCOTS - 

that no one could think of presuming with him. Yet it 
was unusually kindly, and full of a playful humour which 
greatly attached them to him. No one could be farther 
removed from either the Don or the Disciplinarian. 
But his look of keen intellect and high breeding, com- 
bined with gentleness and feeling for his students, com- 
manded attention more than any discipline could have 
done. In matters of College discipline, while he was 
fair and just, he always leant to the forbearing side. . . . 
Till his illness took a more serious form, he was to be 
met at dinner-parties, to which his society always gave a 
great charm. In general society his conversation was 
full of humour and playful jokes, and he had a quick yet 
kindly eye to note the extravagances and absurdities of 
men.' And the Professor goes on to narrate how on a 
winter afternoon he would fall to talking of Horace, an 
especial favourite of his, and how then he would read 
the racy and unconventional translation he had made up 
for amusement. And afterwards he would talk of 
Wordsworth and the feelings he awoke ill him, showing 
'a richness of literary knowledge, and a delicacy and 
keenness of appreciation, of which his philosophical 
writings, except by their fine style, give no hint.' Hegel 
and Plato were the favourite objects of his study. Of the 
former he never satisfied himself that he had completely 
mastered the conception. But the insight that he had 
got into his dialectic and into the doctrine of Reality 
contributed very largely to making his philosophy what 
it was. He endeavoured to apply the system in various 
directions, and ever continued in his efforts to work it out 
more fully. 

Another former student, who has been quoted before, 
writes in his Recollections of student life at St 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 129 

Andrews : 1 ' Ferrier had not Spalding's thorough method 
of teaching. He had no regular time for receiving and 
correcting essays ; he had only one written examination ; 
for oral examination he had an easy way, in which the 
questions suggested the answers \ yet all these drawbacks 
were atoned for by his living presence. It was an 
embodiment of literary and philosophical enthusiasm, 
happily blended with sympathy and urbanity. It did 
the work of the most thorough class drill, for it arrested 
the attention, opened the mind, and filled it with love of 
learning and wisdom. Intellect and humanity seemed 
to radiate from his countenance like light and heat, and 
illumined and fascinated all on whom they fell. . . . 
Let me recall him as he appeared in the spring of 1854. 
The eleven-o'clock bell has rung. All the other classes 
have gone in to lecture. We, the students of Moral 
Philosophy, are lingering in the quadrangle, for the 
Professor, punctual in his unpunctuality, comes in 
regularly two or three minutes after the hour. Through 
the archway under the time-honoured steeple of St. 
Salvator's he approaches — a tall somewhat emaciated 
figure, with intellectual and benevolent countenance. 
As he hurries in we follow and take our seats. In a 
minute he issues gowned from his anteroom, seats him- 
self in his chair, and places his silver snuff-box before 
him. Now that he is without his hat and in his gown, 
he has a striking appearance. His head is large, well- 
developed, and covered with thick iron-grey hair; his 
features are regular, his mouth is refined and sensitive, 
his chin is strong, and his eyes as seen behind his 
spectacles are keenly intelligent and at the same time 

1 Pleasa?it Recollections of a Busy Life, by David Pryde, LL.D., 
p. 59. 

9 



i 3 o FAMOUS SCOTS" 

benevolent. He begins by calling up a student to be 
orally examined ; and the catechising goes on very much 
in the following style : — 

' " Professor, — Well, Mr. Brown, answer a few ques- 
tions, if you please. What is the first proposition of the 
lectures ? 

' " Student repeats it. 

'" Professor, — Quite right, Mr. Brown. And, Mr. 
Brown, is this quite true ? 

111 Stud.— -Yes. 

1 " Prof — Quite right, Mr. Brown. At least, so I think. 
And, Mr. Brown, is it not absurd to hold the reverse ? 

1 " Stud.— Yes. 

' " Prof — Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr. Brown. That 
will do." 

' The Professor then begins his lecture. As long as he 
is stating and proving the propositions in his meta- 
physical system, his tone is simple and matter-of-fact. 
His great aim is to make his meaning plain, and for that 
purpose he often expresses an important idea in various 
ways, using synonyms, and sometimes reading a sen- 
tence twice. But when he comes to illustrate his 
thoughts, his manner changes. He lets loose his fancy, 
his imagination, and even his humour ; and his whole 
soul comes into his voice. His burr, scarcely distin- 
guishable in his ordinary speech, now becomes strong, 
and his whole utterance is slow, intense, and fervid. 
He is particularly happy in his quotations from the 
poets, and he has a peculiarity in reading them which 
increases the effect. When rolling forth a line he some- 
times pauses before he comes to the end, as if to collect 
his strength, and then utters the last word or words with 
redoubled emphasis. The effect of his oquence on 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 131 

the students is electrical. They cease to take notes ; 
every head is raised \ every face beams with delight ; 
and at the end of a passage their feelings find vent in a 
thunderstorm of applause. 

1 The two most remarkable features of his lectures were 
their method and clearness. Order and light were the 
very elements in which his mind lived and moved. He 
kept this end in view, threw aside the facts that were 
unnecessary, arranged the facts that were necessary, and 
expressed them with a precision about which there could 
be no ambiguity. In fact, each idea and the whole 
chain of ideas were visible by their own light. So 
perspicuous were the words that they might have been 
called crystallised thoughts. 

1 Out of the classroom Ferrier was equally polite and 
kind, especially to those students who showed a love and 
a capacity for philosophy. It was no uncommon thing 
for him to stop a student in the street and invite him to 
the house to have a talk about the work of the class. 
I have a distant recollection of my first visit to his 
study ; I see him yet, with his noble, benignant coun- 
tenance, as he reads and discusses passages in my first 
essay, gravely reasoning with me on the points that were 
reasonable, passing lightly over those that were merely 
rhetorical, and smiling good - naturedly at those that 
attacked in no measured language his own system.' 

Professor Ferrier was never failing in hospitality to his 
students as to his other friends. Dr. Pryde goes on : 
' Every year Ferrier invited the best of his students to 
dinner. At the dinner at which I was present there 
were two of his fellow-professors, Sellar and Fischer. It 
was a great treat for a youth like me. Mrs. Ferrier was 
effervescent with animal spirits and talk ; Ferrier himself, 



i 3 2 FAMOUS SCOTS " 

looking like a nobleman in his old-fashioned dress-coat 
with gold buttons, interposed occasionally with his 
subtle touches of wit and humour.' The Professor 
appears to have been an inveterate snuffer. His 
students used to tell how the silver snuff-box was 
made the medium of explaining the Berkeleian system, 
and how to their minds the system, fairly clear in 
words, became a hopeless tangle when the assistance 
of the snuff-box was resorted to. And Dr. Pryde 
narrates how he used to see Professor Spalding and 
Professor Ferrier seated side by side in the students' 
benches, looking on the same book, listening to their 
young colleague Professor Sellar's inspiring lectures, and 
at intervals exchanging snuff-boxes. He gives the follow- 
ing account of his last visit to Ferrier, when he was on 
his deathbed, but still in his library among his books : 
'He told me that his disease was mortal; but face to 
face with death he was cheerful and contented, and had 
bated not one jot of his interest in learning and in 
public events. He was very anxious that I should take 
lunch with Mrs. Ferrier and the rest of the family ; and 
though he could not join us, he sent into the dining- 
room a special bottle of wine as a substitute for himself. 
Two months afterwards he had passed away.' 

Tulloch writes after the sad event had occurred : l ' I 
have, of course, heard the sad news from St. Andrews. 
What sadness it has been to me I cannot tell you. St. 
Andrews never can be the same place without Ferrier. 
God knows what is to become of the University with all 
these breaks upon its old society ; and where can we 
supply such a place as Ferrier's ? ' And his biographer 
adds : i The removal of that delicate and clear spirit 
1 Memoir ; p. 196, by Mrs. Oliphant. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 133 

from a little society in which his position was so impor- 
tant, and his innate refinement of mind so powerful and 
beneficial an influence, was a loss almost indescribable, 
not only to the friends who loved him, but to the 
University. His great reputation was an honour to the 
place, combining as it did so many associations of the 
brilliant past with that due to the finest intellectual 
perception and the most engaging and attractive 
character. Even his little whimsicalities and strain of 
quaint humour gave a charm the more ; and the closing 
of the cheerful house, the centre of wit and brightness 
to the academical community, was a loss which St. 
Andrews never failed to feel, nor the survivors to 
lament.' 

Professor Ferrier was occasionally called upon to 
make a visit to London, although this did not seem to 
have been by any means a frequent occurrence. Busi- 
5 he must occasionally have had there, for in 1861 he 
was appointed to examine in the London University, and 
in 1863, shortly before his death, the Society of Arts 
offered him an examinership in Logic and Mental 
Science, in place of the late Archbishop of York, which 
he accepted. But of one visit which he paid in 1858, 
with Principal Tulloch as joint delegate from the 
University of St. Andrews, Mrs. Oliphant gives an 
amusing account, in her Memoir of Principal Tulloch} 
The object of the deputation was to watch the progress 
of the University Bill through the House of Commons. 
This Bill was one of the earliest efforts after regulating 
the studies, degrees, etc., of the Scottish Universities, 
and also dealt with an increase in the Parliamentary 
grant which, if it passed, would considerably affect the 

1 P. 127. 



i34 FAMOUS SCOTS "* 

Professors' incomes as well as the resources of the 
University. The Bill, which was under the charge of 
Lord Advocate Inglis (afterwards Lord Justice-General 
of Scotland), likewise provided that in each University 
a University Court should be established, as also a 
University Council composed of graduates. Ferrier and 
Tulloch no doubt did their part in the business which 
they had in hand : they visited all the Members of 
Parliament who were likely to be interested, as other 
Scottish deputations have done before and since, and 
received the same evasive and varying replies. But 
in the evenings, and when they were free, they enter- 
tained themselves in different fashion. First of all, they 
have hardly arrived after their long night's journey's 
travel before they burst upon the ' trim and well-ordered 
room where Mr. John Blackwood and his wife were 
seated at breakfast' — this evidently at Ferrier's instiga- 
tion. Then, having settled in Duke Street, St. James's, 
they are asked, rather inappropriately, it would seem, to 
a ball, where they were ' equally impressed by the size 
of the crinoline knd the absence of beauty.' Next 
Cremorne was visited, Tulloch declaring that his object 
was to take care of his companion. ' If you had seen 
Ferrier as he gazed frae him with the half-amused, half- 
scowling expression he not unfrequently assumes, looking 
bored, and yet with a vague philosophical interest at the 
wonderful expanse of gay dresses and fresh womanhood 
around him ! ' ' He will go nowhere without a cab ; to- 
day for the first time I got him into an omnibus in 
search of an Aberdeen Professor, a wild and wandering 
distance which we thought we never should reach.' 
The theatre was visited, too ; Lear was being played, 
very possibly by Charles Kean. In the Royal Academy, 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 135 

Frith's Derby Day was the attraction of the year. But 
quite remarkable was the interest which Ferrier — who did 
not appreciate in general ' going to church,' and used to 
say he preferred to sit and listen to the faint sounds of 
the organ from the quiet of his room — betrayed in the 
eloquence of Spurgeon, then at the height of his fame 
and attracting enormous congregations round him in the 
Surrey Garden Theatre. Tulloch wrote to his wife : 
1 We have just been to hear Spurgeon, and have been 
both so much impressed that I write to give you my 
impressions while they are fresh. As we came out we 
both confessed, " There is no doubt about that" and I 
was struck with Ferrier's remarkable expression, " I feel 
it would do me good to hear the like of that, it sat so 
close to reality." The sermon is about the most real 
thing I have come in contact with for a long time.' 
The building was large and airy, with window-doors from 
which you could walk into the gardens beyond, and 
Ferrier, Tulloch writes, now and then took a turn in the 
fresh air outside while the sermon was progressing. 

After London, Oxford was visited, and here the 
friends lived at Balliol with Mr. Jowett, who had not yet 
become the Master. Ferrier would doubtless delight in 
showing to his friend the beauties of the place with which 
he had so many memories, but to attend eight-o'clock 
chapel with Tulloch was, the latter tells us, beyond 
the limits of his zeal. Just before this, in 1857, another 
visit was paid by Ferrier to Oxford with his family, and 
this time to visit Lady Grant, the mother of his future 
son-in-law. It was at Commemoration-time, we are told, 
and a ball was given in honour of the party. On this 
occasion Ferrier for the first time met Professor Jowett, 
besides many other kindred spirits, and he thoroughly 



136 FAMOUS SCOTS . 

enjoyed wandering about the old haunts at Magdalen, 
where in his youth he had pelted the deer and played 
the part of a young and thoughtless gownsman. 

A little book was published some years ago, on behoof 
of the St. Andrews Students' Union, entitled Speculum 
Universitatis, in which former students and alumni 
piously record their recollections of their Alma Mater. 
Some of these papers bring before us very vividly 
the sort of impression which the life left upon the 
lads, drawn together from all manner of home surround- 
ings, and equally influenced by the memories of the 
past and the living presence of those who were the 
means of opening up new tracts of knowledge to their 
view. One of them, already often quoted, says in a paper 
called ' The Light of Long Ago ' : * I always sink into 
the conviction that the St. Andrews United College was 
never so well worth attending as during the days when 
in its classrooms Duncan taught Mathematics, Spalding 
taught Logic, and Ferrier taught Metaphysics and Moral 
Science, illustrating living literature in his literary style, 
and in the strange tones, pauses, and inflections of his 
voice. To the field of literature and speculation Ferrier 
restored glimpses of the sunshine of Paradise. Under 
his magical spell they ceased to look like fields that had 
been cursed with weeds, watered with sweat and tears, 
and levelled and planted with untold labour. Every 
utterance of his tended alike to disclose the beauty and 
penetrate the mystery of existence. He was a persever- 
ing philosopher, but he was also a poet by a gift of 
nature. The burden of this most unintelligible world 
did not oppress him, nor any other burden. Intellectual 
action proving the riddles of reason was a joy to him. 
He loved philosophy and poetry for their own sake, and 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 137 

he infected others with a kindred, but not an equal, 
passion. He could jest and laugh and play. If he ever 
discovered that much study is a weariness of the flesh, 
he most effectually concealed that discovery.' 

And to conclude, we have the testimony of another 
former student who is now distinguished in the fields of 
literature, but who always remains faithful to his home 
of early days. Mr. Andrew Lang says : ■ Professor 
Ferrier's lectures on Moral Philosophy were the most 
interesting and inspiriting that I ever listened to either 
at Oxford or St. Andrews. I looked on Mr. Ferrier 
with a kind of mysterious reverence, as on the last of the 
golden chain of great philosophers. There was, I know 
not what of dignity, of humour, and of wisdom in his 
face ; there was an air of the student, the vanquisher of 
difficulties, the discoverer of hidden knowledge, in him 
that I have seen in no other. His method at that time 
was to lecture on the History of Philosophy, and his 
manner was so persuasive that one believed firmly in the 
tenets of each school he described, till he advanced 
those of the next ! Thus the whole historical evolution 
of thought went on in the mind of each of his listeners.' 



/ 



CHAPTER IX 

LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS 

In an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old- 
world Moral Philosophy Professor must have seemed 
wonderfully in his place. There are men who, good- 
looking in youth, become ' ordinary - looking ' in later 
years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To 
the last — of course he was not an old man when he died 
— he preserved the same distinguished appearance that 
we are told marked him out from amongst his fellows 
while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in old-fashioned, 
well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven 
face, and merry twinkle about the eye signifying a sense 
of humour which removed him far from anything which 
we associate with the name of pedant ; the dignity, 
when dignity was required, and yet the sympathy always 
ready to be extended to the student, however far he was 
from taking up the point, if he were only trying his best 
to comprehend — all this made up to those who knew 
him, the man, the scholar, and the high-bred gentleman, 
which, in no ordinary or conventional sense, Professor 
Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when years 
have passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it 
is so difficult to reproduce. The personal attraction, the 
atmosphere of culture and chivalry, which was always 
felt to hang about the Professor, has not been forgotten 

138 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 139 

by those who can recall him in the old St. Andrews 
days j but who can reproduce this charm, or do more 
than state its existence as a fact ? Perhaps this sort only 
comes to those whose life is mainly intellectual — who have 
not much, comparatively speaking, to suffer from the 
rough and tumble to which the ' practical ' man is sub- 
jected in the course of his career. Sometimes it is said 
that those who preach high maxims of philosophy and 
conduct belie their doctrines in their outward lives ; but 
on the whole, when we review their careers, this would 
wonderfully seldom seem to be the case. From Socrates' 
time onwards we have had philosophers who have taught 
virtue and practised it simultaneously, and in no case 
has this combination been better exemplified in recent 
days than in that of James Frederick Ferrier, and one 
who unsuccessfully contested his chair upon his death, 
Thomas Hill Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy at 
Oxford. It seems as though it may after all be good to 
speculate on the deep things of the earth as well as to do 
the deeds of righteousness. 

If the saying is true, that the happiest man is he who 
is without a history, then Ferrier has every claim to be 
enrolled in the ranks of those who have attained their 
end. For happiness was an end to Ferrier : he had no 
idea of practising virtue in the abstract, and finding a 
sufficiency in this. Pie believed, however, that the 
happiness to be sought for was the happiness of realising 
our highest aims, and the aim he put before him he very 
largely succeeded in attaining. His life was what most 
people would consider monotonous enough : few events 
outside the ordinary occurrences of family and University 
life broke in upon its tranquil course. Unlike the 
custom of some of his colleagues, summer and winter 



140 FAMOUS SCOTS . 

alike were passed by Ferrier in the quaint old sea-bound 
town. He lived there largely for his work and books. 
Not that he disliked society ; he took the deepest interest 
even in his dinner-parties, and whether as a host or as 
a guest, was equally delightful as a companion or as a 
talker. But in his books he found his real life \ he would 
take them down to table, and bed he seldom reached 
till midnight was passed by two hours at least. One who 
knew and cared for him, the attractive wife of one of his 
colleagues, who spent ten sessions at St. Andrews before 
distinguishing the Humanity Chair in Edinburgh, tells 
how the West Park house had something about its atmo- 
sphere that marked it out as unique — something which 
was due in great measure to the cultured father, but also 
to the bright and witty mother and the three beautiful 
young daughters, who together formed a household by 
itself, and one which made the grey old town a different 
place to those who lived in it. 

Ferrier, as we have seen, had many distinguished 
colleagues in the University. Besides Professor Sellar, 
who held the Chair of Greek, there was the Principal 
of St. Mary's (Principal Tulloch), Professor Shairp, then 
Professor of Latin, and later on the Principal ; the Logic 
Professor, Veitch, Sir David Brewster, Principal of the 
United Colleges, and others. But the society was un- 
conventional in the extreme. The salaries were not 
large : including fees, the ordinance of the Scottish 
Universities Commission appointing the salaries of Pro- 
fessors in 1 86 1, estimates the salary of the professorship 
of Moral Philosophy at St. Andrews at ^444, iSs., 
and the Principal only received about ^100 more. But 
there were not those social customs and conventions to 
maintain that succeed in making life on a small income 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 141 

irksome in a larger city. All were practically on the 
same level in the University circle, and St. Andrews was 
not invaded by so large an army of golfing visitors then 
as now, though the game of course was played with 
equal keenness and enthusiasm. Professor Ferrier took 
no part in this or other physical amusement : possibly it 
had been better for him had he left his books and study 
at times to do so. The friend spoken of above tells, 
however, of the merry parties who walked home after 
dining out, the laughing protests which she made against 
the Professor's rash statement (in allusion to his theory 
of percept ion-mecuni) that she was 'unredeemed nonsense' 
without him ; the way in which, when an idea struck 
him, he would walk to her house with his daughter, 
regardless of the lateness of the hour, and throw pebbles 
at the lighted bedroom windows to gain admittance — 
and of course a hospitable supper; how she, knowing 
that a tablemaid was wanted in the Ferrier establishment, 
dressed up as such and interviewed the mistress, who 
found her highly satisfactory but curiously resembling 
her friend Mrs. Sellar ; and how when this was told her 
husband, he exclaimed, ' Why, of course it's she dressed 
up \ let us pursue her,' which was done with good effect ! 
All these tales, and many others like them, show what the 
homely, sociable, and yet cultured life was like — a life 
such as we in this country seldom have experience of: 
perhaps that of a German University town may most 
resemble it. In spite of being in many ways a recluse, 
Ferrier was ever a favourite with his students, just 
because he treated them, not with familiarity indeed, 
but as gentlemen like himself. Other Professors were 
cheered when they appeared in public, but the loudest 
cheers were always given to Ferrier. 



142 FAMOUS SCOTS" 

Mrs. Ferrier's brilliant personality many can remember 
who knew her during her widowhood in Edinburgh. 
She had inherited many of her father, ' Christopher 
North's ' physical and mental gifts, shown in looks and 
wit. A friend of old days writes : ' She was a queen in 
St. Andrews, at once admired for her wit, her eloquence, 
her personal charms, and dreaded for her free speech, her 
powers of ridicule, and her withering mimicry. Faithful, 
however, to her friends, she was beloved by them, and 
they will lament her now as one of the warmest-hearted 
and most highly-gifted of her sex.' Mrs. Ferrier never 
wrote for publication, — she is said to have scorned the 
idea, — but those who knew her never can forget the flow 
of eloquence, the wit and satire mingled, the humorous 
touches and the keen sense of fun that characterised her 
talk ; for she was one of an era of brilliant talkers that 
would seem to have passed away. Mrs. Ferrier's capacity for 
giving appropriate nicknames was well known : Jowett, after- 
wards Master of Balliol, she christened the ' little downy 
owl.' Her husband's philosophy she graphically described 
by saying that ' it made you feel as if you were sitting up 
on a cloud with nothing on, a lucifer match in your hand, 
but nothing to strike it on,' — a description appealing 
vividly to many who have tried to master it ! 

In many ways she seemed a link with the past of 
bright memories in Scotland, when these links were very 
nearly severed. Five children in all were born to her ; 
of her sons one, now dead, inherited many of his father's 
gifts. Her elder daughter, Lady Grant, the wife of Sir 
Alexander Grant, Principal of the Edinburgh University 
and a distinguished classical scholar, likewise succeeded 
to much of her mother's grace and charm as well as of 
her father's accomplishments. Under the initials 'O. J.' 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 143 

she was in the habit of contributing delightful humorous 
sketches to Blackwood 's Magazine — the magazine which 
her father and her grandfather had so often contributed 
to in their day j but her life was not a long one : she 
died in 1895, eleven years after her husband, and while 
many possibilities seemed still before her. 

Perhaps we might try to picture to ourselves the life in 
which Ferrier played so prominent a part in the only 
real University town of which Scotland can boast. For 
it is in St. Andrews that the traditional distinctions 
between the College and the University are maintained, 
that there is the solemn stillness which befits an ancient 
seat of learning, that every step brings one in view of some 
monument of ages that are past and gone, and that we 
are reminded not only of the learning of our ancestors, 
of their piety and devotion to the College they built and 
endowed, but of the secular history of our country as 
well. In this, at least, the little University of the North 
has an advantage over her rich and powerful rivals, inas- 
much as there is hardly any important event which has 
taken place in Scottish history but has left its mark 
upon the place. No wonder the love of her students to 
the Alma Mater is proverbial. In Scotland we have little 
left to tell us of the mediaeval church and life, so com- 
pletely has the Reformation done its work, and so 
thoroughly was the land cleared of its ' popish images ' ; 
and hence we value what little there remains to us all 
the more. And the University of St. Andrews, the oldest 
of our seats of learning, has come down to us from 
mediaeval days. It was founded by a Catholic bishop 
in 141 1, about a century after the dedication of the 
Cathedral, now, of course, a ruin. But it is to the good 
Bishop Kennedy who established the College of St. 



144 FAMOUS SCOTS- 

Salvator, one of the two United Colleges of later times, 
that we ascribe most honour in reference to the old 
foundation. Not only did he build the College on the 
site which was afterwards occupied by the classrooms 
in which Ferrier and his colleagues taught, but he like- 
wise endowed them with vestments and rich jewels, 
including amongst their numbers a beautifully chased 
silver mace which may still be seen. Of the old College 
buildings there is but the chapel and janitor's house now 
existing; within the chapel, which is modernised and 
used for Presbyterian service, is the ancient founder's 
tomb. The quadrangle, after the Reformation, fell into 
disrepair, and the present buildings are comparatively 
of recent date. The next College founded — that of St. 
Leonard — which became early imbued with Reformation 
principles, was, in the eighteenth century, when its finances 
had become low, incorporated with St. Salvator's, and 
when conjoined they were in Ferrier's time, as now, 
known as the 'United College.' Besides the United 
College there was a third and last College, called St. 
Mary's. Though founded by the last of the Catholic 
bishops before the Reformation, it was subsequently 
presided over by the anti-prelatists Andrew Melville and 
Samuel Rutherford. St. Mary's has always been devoted 
to the study of theology. 

But the history of her colleges is not all that has to be 
told of the ancient city. Association it has with nearly 
all who have had to do with the making of our history — 
the good Queen Margaret, Beaton, and, above all, Queen 
Mary and her great opponent Knox. The ruined Castle 
has many tales to tell could stones and trees have 
tongues — stories of bloodshed, of battle, of the long 
siege when Knox was forced to yield to France and be 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 145 

carried to the galleys. After the murder of Archbishop 
Sharp, and the revolution of 1688, the town once so 
prosperous dwindled away, and decayed into an unim- 
portant seaport. There is curiously little attractive about 
its situation in many regards. It is out of the way, 
difficult of access once upon a time, and even now not 
on a main line of rail, too near the great cities, and yet 
at the same time too far off. The coast is dangerous for 
fishermen, and there is no harbour that can be called 
such. No wonder, it seems, that the town became 
neglected and insanitary, that Dr. Johnson speaks of 
'the silence and solitude of inactive indigence and 
gloomy depopulation,' and left it with ' mournful 
images. 1 But if St. Andrews had its drawbacks, it had 
still more its compensations. It had its links — the long 
stretch of sandhills spread far along the coast, and bring- 
ing crowds of visitors to the town every summer as it 
comes round ; and for the pursuit of learning the remote- 
ness of position has some advantages. Even at its worst 
the University showed signs of its recuperative powers. 
Early in the century Chalmers was assistant to the Pro- 
or of Mathematics, and then occupied the Chair of 
Moral Philosophy (that chair to which Ferrier was after- 
wards appointed), and drew crowds of students round him. 
Then came a time of innovation. If in 1821 St. Andrews 
was badly paved, ill-lighted, and ruinous, an era of reform 
set in. New classrooms were built, the once neglected 
library was added to and rearranged, and the town was 
put to rights through an energetic provost, Major, after- 
wards Sir Hugh, Lyon Playfair. He made 'crooked 
places straight ' in more senses than one, swept away 
the ' middens ' that polluted the air, saw to the lighting 
and paving of the streets, and generally brought about 
10 



146 FAMOUS SCOTS ? 

the improvements which we expect to find in a modern 
town. SOn being placed in the civic chair, he had found 
the streets unpaved, uneven, overgrown with weeds, and 
dirty; the ruins of the time-honoured Cathedral and 
Castle used as a quarry for greedy and sacrilegious 
builders, and the University buildings falling into dis- 
repair; and he had resolved to change all this. With 
persistency almost unexampled, he had employed all the 
arts of persuasion and compulsion upon those who had 
the power to remedy these abuses. He had dunned, he 
had coaxed, he had bantered, he had bargained, he had 
borrowed, he had begged ; and he had been successful. 
In 1 85 1 the streets were paved and clean, the fine old 
ruins were declared sacred, and the dilapidated parts of 
the University buildings had been replaced by a new 
edifice. And he — the Major, as he was called — a little 
man, white-haired, shaggy-eyebrowed, blue-eyed, red- 
faced, with his hat cocked on the side of his head, and 
a stout cane in his hand, walked about in triumph, the 
uncrowned king of the place.' 1 

Of this same renovating provost, it is told that one day 
he dropped in to see the Moral Philosophy Professor, 
who, however deeply engaged with his books, was always 
ready to receive his visitors. 'Well, Major, I have just 
completed the great work of my life. In this book I 
claim to make philosophy intelligible to the meanest 
understanding.' Playfair at once requested to hear 
some of it read aloud. Ferrier reluctantly started to 
read in his slow, emphatic way, till the Major became 
fidgety ; still he went on, till Playfair started to his feet. 
'I say, Ferrier, do you mean to say this is intelligible 
to the meanest understanding?' 'Do you understand 
1 Pleasant Memories, by David Pryde, LL. D. 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 147 

it, Major?'* 'Yes, I think I do.' 'Then, Major, I'm 
satisfied.' 

Of the social life, Mrs. Oliphant says in her Life of 
Principal Tulloch : ' The society, I believe, was more 
stationary than it has been since, and more entirely dis- 
posed to make of St. Andrews the pleasantest and 
brightest of abiding-places. Sir David Brewster was still 
throned in St. Leonard's. Professor Ferrier, with his 
witty and brilliant wife — he full of quiet humour, she of 
wildest wit, a mimic of alarming and delightful power, 
with something of the countenance and much of the 
genius of her father, the great " Christopher North " of 
Blackwood?* Magazine — made the brightest centre of 
social mirth and meetings. West Park, their pleasant 
home, at the period which I record it, was ever open, 
ever sounding with gay voices and merry laughter, with 
a boundless freedom of talk and comment, and an end- 
less stream of good company. Professor Ferrier himself 
was one of the greatest metaphysicians of his time — the 
first certainly in Scotland j but this was perhaps less 
upon the surface than a number of humorous ways which 
were the delight of his friends, many quaint abstractions 
proper to his philosophic character, and a happy friend- 
liness and gentleness along with his wit, which gave his 
society a continual charm.' Professor Knight, who now 
occupies Ferrier's place in the professoriate of St. 
Andrews, in his Life of Professor S/iairp, quotes from a 
paper of reminiscences by Professor Sellar : ' The 
centre of all the intellectual and social life of the 
University and of the town was Professor Ferrier. He 
inspired in the students a feeling of affectionate devotion 
as well as admiration, such as I have hardly ever known 
inspired by any teacher ; and to many of them his mere 



i 4 8 FAMOUS SCOTS 

presence and bearing in the classroom was a large element 
in a liberal education. By all his colleagues he was 
esteemed as a man of most sterling honour, a staunch 
friend, and a most humorous and delightful companion. 
. . . There certainly never was a household known to 
either of us in which the spirit of racy and original 
humour and fun was so exuberant and spontaneous in 
every member of it, as that of which the Professor and 
his wife — the most gifted and brilliant, and most like her 
father of the three gifted daughters of "Christopher 
North " — were the heads. Our evenings there generally 
ended in the Professor's study, where he was always 
ready to discuss, either from a serious or humorous point 
of view (not without congenial accompaniment), the 
various points of his system till the morning was well 
advanced.' 

Ferrier's daughter writes of the house at West Park : 
1 It w T as an old-fashioned, rough cast or " harled " house 
standing on the road in Market Street, but approached 
through a small green gate and a short avenue of trees — 
trees that were engraven on the heart and memory from 
childhood. The garden at the back still remains. In 
our time it was a real old-fashioned Scotch garden, well 
stocked with " berries," pears, and apples ; quaint grass 
walks ran through it, and a summer-house with stained- 
glass windows stood in a corner. West Park was built 
on a site once occupied by the Grey Friars, and I am not 
romancing when I say that bones and coins were known 
to have been discovered in the garden even in our time. 
Our home was socially a very amusing and happy one, 
though my father lived a good deal apart from us, 
coming down from his dear old library occasionally in 
the evenings to join the family circle.' This family circle 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 149 

was occasionally supplemented by a French teacher or a 
German, and for one year by a certain Mrs. Huggins, an 
old ex-actress who originally came to give a Shakespeare 
reading in St. Andrews, and who fell into financial 
difficulties, and was invited by the hospitable Mrs. 
Ferrier to make her home for a time at West Park. 
The visit was not in all respects a success, Mrs. Huggins 
being somewhat exacting in her requirements and difficult 
to satisfy. So little part did its master take in house- 
hold matters that it was only by accident, after reading 
prayers one Sunday evening, that he noticed her presence. 
On inquiring who the stranger was, Mrs. Ferrier replied, 
' Oh, that is Mrs. Huggins.' ' Then what is her 
avocation?' 'To read Shakespeare and draw your 
window-curtains/ said the ever-ready Mrs. Ferrier ! The 
children of the house were brought up to love the stage 
and everyone pertaining to it, and whenever a strolling 
company came to St. Andrews the Ferriers were the first 
to attend their play. The same daughter writes that 
when children their father used to thrill them with tales 
of Burke and Hare, the murderers and resurrectionists 
whose doings brought about a reign of terror in Edin- 
burgh early in the century. As a boy, Ferrier used to 
walk out to his grandfather's in Morningside— then a 
country suburb — in fear and trembling, expecting every 
moment to meet Burke, the object of his terror. On 
one occasion he believed that he had done so, and 
skulked behind a hedge and lay down till the scourge of 
Edinburgh passed by. In 1828 he witnessed his hang- 
ing in the Edinburgh prison. Professor Wilson, his 
father-in-law, it may be recollected, spoke out his mind 
about the famous Dr. Knox in the Nodes as well as in 
his classroom, and it was a well-known fact that his 



150 FAMOUS SCOTS 

favourite Newfoundland dog Bronte was poisoned by the 
students as an act of retaliation. 

Murder trials had always a fascination for Ferrier. 
On one occasion he read aloud to his children De 
Quincey's essay, ' Murder as a Fine Art,' which so 
terrified his youngest daughter that she could hardly 
bring herself to leave her father's library for bed. Some- 
what severe to his sons, to his daughters Ferrier was 
specially kind and indulgent, helping them with their 
German studies, reading Schiller's plays to them, and 
when little children telling them old-world fairy tales. 
A present of Grimm's Tales, brought by her father after 
a visit to London, was, she tells us, a never-to-be- 
forgotten joy to the recipient. 

The charm of the West Park house was spoken of by 
all the numerous young men permitted to frequent its 
hospitable board. There was a wonderful concoction 
known by the name of ' Bishop,' against whose attraction 
one who suffered by its potency says that novices were 
warned, more especially in view of a certain sunk fence 
in the immediate vicinity which had afterwards to be 
avoided. The jokes that passed at these entertainments, 
which were never dull, are past and gone, — their piquancy 
would be gone even could they be reproduced, — but 
the impression left on the minds of those who shared 
in them is ineffaceable, and is as vivid now as forty 
years ago. 

There was a custom, now almost extinct, of keeping 
books of so-called ' Confessions,' in which the contri- 
butors had the rather formidable task of filling up their 
likes or dislikes for the entertainment of their owners. 
In Mrs. Sellar's album Ferrier made several interesting 
' confessions ' — whether we take them an gra?id serieux 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 151 



or only as playful jests with a grain of truth behind. 
Here are some of the questions and their answers. 



Question. 

Your favourite character in 
history. 

The character you most dislike. 

Your favourite kind of literature. 

Your favourite author. 

Your favourite occupation and 
amusement. 

Those you dislike most. 

Your favourite topics of con- 
versation. 

Those you dislike most. 

Your ambition. 

Your ideal. 

Your hobby. 

The virtue you most admire. 

The vices to which you are 
most lenient. 



Answer, 



Socrates. 



Calvin. 

The A radian Nights, 

Hegel. 

Driving with a handsome 

woman. 
Fishing, walking, and dancing. 
Humorous and tender. 

Statistical and personal. 
To reach the Truth. 
Always to pay ready money. 
Peacemaking. 
Reasonableness. 
The world, the flesh, and the 
devil. 



These last two answers are very characteristic of 
Ferrier's point of view in later days. He was above all 
reasonable — no ascetic who could not understand the 
temptations of the world, but one who enjoyed its 
pleasures, saw the humorous side of life, appreciated the 
aesthetic, and yet kept the dictates of reason ever before 
his mind. And his ambition to reach the Truth 

1 Differed from a host 
Of aims alike in character and kind, 
Mostly in this — that in itself alone 
Shall its reward be, not an alien end 
Blending therewith.' 

Thus, like Paracelsus, he aspired, 



CHAPTER X 

LAST DAYS 

It used to be said that none can be counted happy 
until they die, and certainly the manner of a man's death 
often throws light upon his previous life, and enables us 
to judge it as we should not otherwise have been able 
to do. Ferrier's death was what his life had been : it 
was with calm courage that he looked it in the face — the 
same calm courage with which he faced the perhaps even 
greater problems of life that presented themselves. 
Death had no terrors to him ; he had lived in the 
consciousness that it was an essential factor in life, and a 
factor which was not ever to be overlooked. And he 
had every opportunity, physically speaking, for expecting 
its approach. In November 1861 he had a violent 
seizure of angina pectoris^ after which, although he 
temporarily recovered, he never completely regained 
his strength. For some weeks he was unable to 
meet his students, and then, when partially recovered, 
he arranged to hold the class in the dining-room of his 
house, which was fitted up specially for the purpose. 
Twice in the year 1863 was he attacked in a similar 
way; in June of that year he went up to London 
to conduct the examination in philosophy of the 
students of the London University \ but in October, 

152 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 153 

when he ought to have gone there once more, he 
was unable to carry out his intention. On the 31st 
of October, Dr. Christison was consulted about his 
state, and pronounced his case to be past hope of 
remedy. He opened his class on the nth of November 
in his own house, but during this month was generally 
confined to bed. On the 8th of December he was 
attacked by congestion of the brain, and never lectured 
again. His class was conducted by Mr. Rhoades, 1 then 
AYarden of the recently-founded College Hall, who, as 
many others among his colleagues would have been 
ready to do, willingly undertook the melancholy task 
of officiating for so beloved and honoured a friend. 
After this, all severe study and mental exertion was 
forbidden. He became gradually weaker, with glimpses 
now and then of transitory improvement. So in 
unfailing courage and resignation, not unwilling to 
hope for longer respite, but always prepared to die, 
he placidly, reverently, awaited the close, tended 
by the watchful care of his devoted wife and chil- 
dren.' 2 On the nth day of June 1864, Ferrier 
passed away. He is buried in Edinburgh, in the 
old churchyard of St. Cuthbert's, in the heart of the 
city, near his father and his grandfather, and many 
Others whose names are famous in the annals of his 
country. 

During these three years, in which death had been a 
question of but a short time, Ferrier had not ceased to 
be busy and interested in his work. The dates of his 
lectures on Greek Philosophy show that he had not 

1 Afterwards Ferrier' s son-in-law. 

2 Lectures and Philosophical Remains ', Introductory Notes, 
p. xxh\ 



154 FAMOUS SCOTS 

failed to carry on the work of bringing them into shape, 
and though the wish could not be accomplished in its 
entirety, it speaks much for his resolution and deter- 
mination that through all his bodily weakness he kept 
his work in hand. Of course much had to be forgone. 
Ferrier was never what is called robust, and his manner 
of life was not conducive to physical health, combining 
as it did late hours with lack of physical exercise. But 
in these later years he was unable to walk more than the 
shortest distance, the ascent of a staircase was an effort 
to him, and tendencies to asthma developed which must 
have made his life often enough a physical pain. Still, 
though it was evident that there could be but one 
ending to the struggle, Ferrier gave expression to no 
complaints, and though he might, as Principal Tulloch 
says, utter a half-playful, half-grim expression regarding 
his sufferings, he never seemed to think there was 
anything strange in them, anything that he should 
not bear calmly as a man and as a Christian. Nor 
did he talk of change of scene or climate as likely 
to give relief. He ' quietly, steadily, and cheerfully ' 
faced the issue, be it what it might. The very day 
before he died, he was, we are told, in his library, 
busy amongst his books. Truly, it may be said of 
him as of another cut off while yet in his prime, ' he died 
learning/ 

' Towards his friends during this time/ says his 
biographer, ' all that was sweetest in his disposition 
seemed to gain strength and expansion from the near 
shadow of death. He spoke of death with entire fearless- 
ness, and though this was nothing new to those who knew 
him best, it impressed their minds at this time more vividly 
than ever. The less they dared to hope for his life being 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 155 

prolonged, the more their love and regard were deepened 
by his tender thoughtfulness for others, and the kindli- 
ness which annihilated all absorbing concern for himself. 
In many little characteristic touches of humour, frankness, 
beneficence, beautiful gratitude for any slight help or 
attention, his truest and best nature seemed to come out 
all the more freely ; he grew as it were more and more 
entirely himself indeed. If ever a man was true to 
philosophy, or a man's philosophy true to him, it was so 
with Ferrier during all the time when he looked death in 
the face and possessed his soul in patience/ And, as so 
often happens when the things of this world are regarded 
sub specie ceter?iitatis i the old animosities, such as they 
were, faded away. It is told how a former opponent on 
philosophical questions whose criticisms he had resented, 
called to inquire for him, and when the card was given 
to him, Ferrier exclaimed, ' That must be a good fellow ! ' 
Principal Tulloch, his friend and for ten years his col- 
league, was with him constantly, and talked often to him 
about his work — the work on Plato and his philosophy, 
that he would have liked to accomplish in order to com- 
plete his lectures. The summer before his death they 
read together some of Plato's dialogues which he had 
carefully pencilled with his notes. He also took to 
reading Virgil, in which occupation his friend frequently 
joined with him, and this seemed to relieve the languor 
from which he suffered. As to religion, which was a 
subject on which he thought much, although he did not 
frequently express an opinion, Tulloch says : ' He was 
unable to feel much interest in any of its popular 
forms, but he had a most intense interest in its great 
mysteries, and a thorough reverence for its truths when 
these were not disfigured by superstition and formalism,' 



156 FAMOUS SCOTS 

Immortality, as we have seen, meant to him that there is 
a permanent and abiding element beyond the merely 
particular and individual which must pass away, and so 
far it was a reality in his mind. God was a real presence 
in the world, and not a far away divinity in whom men 
believed but whom they could not know ; but as to the 
creeds and doctrines of the Church, they seemed far 
removed from the Essential, from true Reality. Professor 
(afterwards Principal) Shairp writes : ' In the visits which 
I made to his bedroom from time to time, when I found 
him sometimes on chair or sofa, sometimes in bed, I 
never heard one peevish or complaining word escape him, 
nothing but what was calm and cheerful, though to him- 
self as to others it was evident that the outward man 
was fast perishing. The last time but one that I saw 
him was on a Sunday in April. He was sitting up in bed. 
The conversation fell on serious subjects, on the craving 
the soul feels for some strength and support out from 
and above itself, on the certainty that all men feel that 
need, and on the testimony left by those who have tried 
it most, that they had found that need met by Him of 
whose earthly life the gospel histories bear witness. 
This, or something like this, was the subject on which 
our conversation turned. He paused and dwelt on the 
thought of the soul's hunger. " Hunger is the great 
weaver in moral things as in physical. The hunger that 
is in the new-born child sits weaving the whole bodily 
frame, bones and sinews, out of nothing. And so I 
suppose in moral and spiritual things it is hunger that 
builds up the being." ' 

Professor Veitch, a later colleague at St. Andrews, 
adds : ' We miss the finely-cut decisive face, the erect 
jnanly presence, the measured meditative step, the 



JAMES FREDERICK FERRIER 157 

friendly greeting. But there are men, and Ferrier was 
one of them, for whom, once known, there is no real 
past. The characteristic features and qualities of such 
men become part of our conscious life ; memory keeps 
them before us living and influential, in a higher, truer 
present which overshadows the actual and visible.' And 
Professor Baynes speaks of him as one of the noblest and 
most pure-hearted men that he had ever known, com- 
bining 'a fine ethereal intelligence with a most gallant, 
tender, and courageous spirit.' 

Such is the man as he presented himself to his friends 
even when the shadows were darkening and the last 
long journey coming very near : a true man and a good; 
one in whose footsteps we fain would tread, one who 
makes it easier for those who follow him to tread them 
too. His work was done ; it might seem unfinished — 
what work is ever complete ? But he had taken his share 
in it, the little bit that any individual man can do, and had 
done it with all his strength. And what did it amount 
to ? Was it worth the labour of so many years of toil ? 
Who is there who can reply? And yet we can see 
something of what has been accomplished ; we can see 
that philosophy has been made a more living thing for 
Scotland, that a blow has been struck against material- 
istic creeds, or beliefs which are merely formal and without 
any true convincing power. It may not have been 
much : the work was but begun, and it was left to 
others to carry that work on. But in philosophy, as in 
the rest, it is the first step that costs, and amid great 
difficulty and considerable opposition Ferrier took that 
step. He left much unexplained ; he dwelt too much in 
the clouds, and did not try to solve the real difficulties 
of personal, individual life; he did not show how 



158 FAMOUS SCOTS " 

his high-flown theories worked in a world of strife and 
struggle, of sin and sorrow. He could only be said 
to have struck a keynote, but that keynote as far as 
it went was true, and the harmonies may be left to 
follow. 



FAMOUS SCOTS" SERIES. 



Some Opinions of the Press on 
ADAM SMITH. 

By HECTOR C. MACPHERSON. 



"The style is pleasant, and the treatment luminous. The mono- 
graph, as a whole, should be found attractive and informing." — Globe, 

" Smith's life is briefly and clearly told, and there is a good deal of 
independent criticism interspersed amidst the chapters on the phil- 
osopher's two principal treatises. Mr. Macpherson's analysis of 
Smith's economic teaching makes excellent reading." — Echo, 

" His personal and intellectual career, so far as the limits of the 
'Famous Scots' Series permitted, is clearly and entertainingly presented 
by Mr. Macpherson." — Morning Leader, 

"The book is of great price. It is complete, proportioned, vivid, 
the picture of a great man, and with all its brevity, worthy of his 
greatness. " — Expository Times, 

"Interesting both as a contribution to the literature of political 
economy, and as a sketch of the career of one of Scotland's most illus- 
trious sons." — Publishers Circular. 

"The monograph is a clear and able exposition and criticism of its 
subject. It deserves a prominent place in the series it belongs to." — 
Bookman, 

" An interesting and lively study of the English founder of political 
economy, this little book is remarkable as a whole-hearted vindication 
of the Cobdenic ideas of international policy. The author considers it 
to be Adam Smith's chief achievement that he has demonstrated with 
scientific completeness that Free Trade, as Cobden happily expressed it, 
is the international law of God Almighty." — Spectator, 

"This little book is written with brains and a degree of courage 
which is in keeping with its convictions. It has vision, too, and that 
counts for righteousness, if anywhere, in political economy." — Speaker, 

" A sound and able piece of work, and contains a fair and discerning 
estimate of Smith in his essential character as the author of the 
doctrine of Free Trade, and consequently of the modern science of 
economics." — Glasgow Herald, 

"The writer of this biography deserves to be warmly congratulated 
on the result of his labour. He has written, to my mind at least, one of 
the best of the series of ' Famous Scots,' and has enshrined the author 
of the ■ Wealth of Nations ' in a manner at once attractive, interesting, 
and instructive. " — Northern Figaro, 



ADAM SMITH— continued. 



" Of Adam Smith the man there are some interesting stories in 
this volume." — Academy. 

" This book is one warmly to be commended as among the very best 
of a notable series." — Kihnarnock Standard. 

"The story of Smith's life is plainly but interestingly told, with 
occasional graphic descriptions of the society of his time : but it will 
undoubtedly be as an exposition of the philosophical questions in- 
volved that the book will be most highly prized." — Daily Free Press. 

"It is a biography with a specific purpose, and this purpose is 
admirably worked out. In some respects, indeed, Mr. Macpherson's 
object is educational. Not content with doing justice to the great 
master of economic science, he shows what we owe to other workers in 
the same school of thought." — Leeds Mercury. 

"Those who have read Mr. Macpherson's ' Thomas Carlyle,' with 
which this highly interesting series was opened, will turn with pleasure 
and expectancy to the volume just issued. Mr. Macpherson has given 
us a volume much above the average of the series both in literary merit 
and thoughtfulness. We strongly recommend this excellent pen-and-ink 
portrait, of the man who gave Britain the key to the wealth of the world, 
of our fellow-students." — Student. 

"One of the best of an admirable series." — Scots Pictorial. 

"An admirable monograph." — London Daily Mail. 

"A thoughtful and capably written monograph." — Liverpool Daily 
Post. 

" Mr. Macpherson states the facts most admirably, and he has such 
a knowledge of the movements and events of the times in which Smith 
lived that he is able to make an excellent use of them as showing how 
they influenced such a thinker as the author of the ' Wealth of 
Nations,' and how, in turn, he was able to change the trend of the 
thinking of his age." — Perthshire Courier. 

Mr. Herbert Spencer says: "I have learned much from your 
sketch of Adam Smith's life and work. It presents the essential facts 
in a lucid and interesting way. Especially am I glad to see that you 
have insisted upon the individualistic character of his teaching. It is 
well that his authority on the side of individualism should be put 
forward in these days of rampant Socialism, when the great mass of 
legislative measures extend public agency and restrict private agency ; 
the advocates of such measures being blind to the fact that by small 
steps they are bringing about a state in which the citizen will have lost 
all freedom." fw A - 4 









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